A group of us wanted to help the process of engaging public opinion, because we felt the documents produced by Birmingham City Council were difficult to understand. So we took it upon ourselves to re-write it in plain English, make it available online for comment on www.bigcitytalk.org.uk, and liaise with the Council on how best to feed back to them any information that we gathered.

I’ve been putting off writing this post because I was uneasy about voicing my opinion. I wanted to be positive and encouraging, but my experiences were leaving me tired, deflated and deeply discouraged.

But now the public consultation is officially over.

That’s right: the citizens of Birmingham, whether they knew it or not (probably not; who ever takes notice of a poster on a lamp-post, let alone takes down the web address?), have had their chance to feed back on the Work in Progress (pdf) document that outlines the Council’s plans. Hark! Can I hear alarm bells already? Surely that extensive document should have been written after a consultation, not before: otherwise what is there to consult on?

Indeed, when we started re-writing the document it became quickly apparent that the thinking behind it was very muddled. For a start, in each section is a bit of background information followed by a number of options. Who are these options for? If they’re for the reader does that mean we’re going to be asked to vote on which of them is implemented? Probably not, because actually the options appear to be nothing more than a wish-list dependent on budget. In which case they’re not ‘options’ at all and so should not have been included in the document in the first place.

Then there’s the language. Remember that we were re-writing this in our free time, voluntarily: we are intelligent, enthusiastic individuals, unusually keen to engage with civic life. Yet even we found it incomprehensible, jargonistic and alienating. And there were only six of us. How on earth do they expect to enthuse the other million residents of Birmingham?

And then there are the acronyms that weren’t explained, and the inconsistent numbering of sections in different documents (a consultation leaflet was also produced which, confusingly, didn’t match the structure of the Work in Progress document).

The crazy thing is that it’s not hard. Producing a consultation document that the average member of the public can understand is easy, if you really care. Birmingham itself has plenty of top class graphic communicators, journalists, copywriters and sub-editors. The Big City Plan is such a massive undertaking that there are, presumably, the financial resources to make sure the public is consulted properly. It seems that it’s just the will that isn’t there.

Add to this the disturbing disdain shown by Birmingham Council Leader Mike Whitby, and you could be forgiven for thinking the council actually wants to alienate its citizens.

The truly depressing bit is that it isn’t a conspiracy. I truly believe there are lots of people in the council who really want this to work. But the bureaucracy of Birmingham City Council seems incapable of understanding how public engagement works.

Instead of talking and listening to people, they want to control. Take for example the Council recently banning its employees from using Facebook, which the Post reported by singling out two members of the Communications team. If a communications team isn’t allowed to use the popular methods of communication, then it’s being prevented from doing its job. Yet rather than encourage understanding and best use of these new technologies and methods of working, the council simply seems to try ignoring them.

So we’ll just have to see what happens. I hope they know what they’re doing, and that they’ve learnt some lessons for next time. At least they have now acknowledged, and taken custody of, the information we gathered through the bigcitytalk website.

Note

This post was originally drafted two weeks ago. Since then there have been a few public consultation meetings (although after the official closing date).

A number of other people were involved in the Big City Talk project, in particular Nick Booth, Jon Bounds, Julia Gilbert, Nicky Getgood and Stef Lewandowski.

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Two weeks ago a bus of council employees was scheduled to visit the Highgate area of Birmingham. The purpose was to consult local people on the Big City Plan. This didn’t happen: the bus was rescheduled at the last minute so people turned up unawares.

That is unfortunate, but in itself not scandalous. What is scandalous is that, according to Paul Dale on the Birmingham Post website, the bus was commandeered by Mr Whitby for a photo shoot.

If that’s true, it’s the the clearest signal yet that those at the top of Birmingham City Council have no interest in what their citizens have to say about this Big City Plan.

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Visit Big City Plan Talk

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  2. Whitby commandeers bus in contempt for public consultation
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In the meantime though I just want to help publicise the bus that’s doing the rounds in Birmingham.

The council is seeking people’s opinions on its Big City Plan (a massive development plan for Birmingham), and the more they get the more they’ll have to listen to them: because failure to listen will mean alienating a whole swathe of Birmingham’s citizens.

(You can probably already gauge the tone of the post I intend to write!)

I won’t encourage you to get involved with the online consultation, not yet anyway: your sanity is far too precious for that. But please, please visit the bus over the next few days and chat to the good people there about the council’s plans for Birmingham. They will write down your opinions, and hopefully the council will read them: and, dare I say it, take notice of them.

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  3. Whitby commandeers bus in contempt for public consultation