supporting effective citizenship in local government: engaging, educating and empowering local...

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Supporting Effective Citizenshipin Local Government: Engaging,Educating and Empowering LocalCitizensRhys Andrews a , Richard Cowell a , James Downe a ,Steve Martin a & David Turner ba Centre for Local and Regional Government Research,Cardiff University , Wales, UKb Department of Natural and Social Sciences ,University of Gloucestershire , Cheltenham, UKPublished online: 22 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: Rhys Andrews , Richard Cowell , James Downe , Steve Martin &David Turner (2008) Supporting Effective Citizenship in Local Government: Engaging,Educating and Empowering Local Citizens, Local Government Studies, 34:4, 489-507,DOI: 10.1080/03003930802217462

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Supporting Effective Citizenship inLocal Government: Engaging,Educating and Empowering LocalCitizens

RHYS ANDREWS*, RICHARD COWELL*, JAMES DOWNE*,

STEVE MARTIN* & DAVID TURNER***Centre for Local and Regional Government Research, Cardiff University, Wales, UK

**Department of Natural and Social Sciences, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK

ABSTRACT Civic-republican theories suggest that an active citizenry is associated withcommunity cohesion, better political institutions and inclusive democratic decisionmaking. The influence of these arguments on the UK Labour government has led policymakers to focus attention on strategies to promote citizenship at a local level. Inparticular, English local authorities are expected to provide ‘support for citizenship’ aspart of their wider duty to promote ‘effective community engagement’. The ways inwhich they can do this are various, ranging from the simple provision of information todirect support for community networks and groups. This article reports the findings ofan extensive study of English councils’ efforts to engage, educate and empower localcitizens. The paper concludes that although local authorities have made significantprogress in recent years in widening the structures for communicating with, andengaging citizens, there remains considerable scope for improving activities that addressthe learning implications of effective citizenship.

KEY WORDS: Citizenship, community engagement, local government, England

Introduction

While public disaffection with formal democratic processes is neither newnor unique to the UK (Pharr & Putnam, 2000), since 1997 the UK Labourgovernment has been particularly vocal in its concern about this issue. A keyresponse has been to encourage people to re-connect with government andtheir communities by becoming ‘active citizens’ (Blunkett, 2003; Marinetto,2003). However, the rationale for the kind of ‘reconnection’ that active

Correspondence Address: Rhys Andrews, Centre for Local and Regional Government

Research, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, Wales, UK.

Email: [email protected]

Local Government StudiesVol. 34, No. 4, 489–507, August 2008

ISSN 0300-3930 Print/1743-9388 Online � 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/03003930802217462

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citizenship is deemed to achieve has evolved over time. Long-standingconsternation about low turnout in UK local elections has beensupplemented by survey evidence showing declining trust in publicinstitutions, especially politicians (MORI, 2003). Meanwhile, the events of9/11 and 7/7 have led to heightened concerns about the dangers posed forcommunity cohesion and integration by Islamic extremists (Blair, 2006;Kelly, 2006). The ‘complex combination of discursive moral repertoires’ forcitizenship that these various concerns have provoked (Dean, 2004: 72) hasbeen reflected in myriad policy agendas and initiatives.

Local authorities are caught up in these agendas in various ways. Manyhave sought independently to encourage public participation for some time(Leach et al., 2005), displaying particular enthusiasm ‘for forms of citizeneducation which explained how the council worked and what opportunitiesthere were for participation’ (Lowndes et al., 2001: 449). Central govern-ment, in turn, has sought to harness local authorities to its own ‘activecitizenship’ agenda. While schools are now expected to deliver a formalprogramme of citizenship education, the government has insisted that localauthorities should also alert ‘young people to the working of social andpublic life . . . and the means at their disposal for influencing local policies’(DTLR, 2001: 20). In addition, twenty-four Councils have been recruited as‘Civic Pioneers’ – a joint Home Office, LGA and SOLACE initiative – toshare their practical experiences in participatory democracy with othercouncils. ‘Active citizenship’ also features prominently in the government’sten-year vision for local government (ODPM, 2004). It is therefore timelyand pertinent to examine in detail the extent to which local authorities aresupporting citizens in becoming more effective participants in local affairs.

This paper reports the findings of a research project examining goodpractice in supporting effective citizenship in English local authorities(DCLG, 2006b). The study addressed the following main questions, fromthe perspective of local authorities themselves. What were the aims ofcouncils’ citizenship activities? What types of action did authorities claim tobe taking to support effective citizenship and were they evaluating theimpacts? To what extent were councils engaging, educating and empoweringlocal citizens? For the purposes of the study and this paper, ‘effectivecitizenship’ was defined as educational, learning or awareness-raisingactivities which help people develop the knowledge, skills and confidenceto engage with local decision making. This captures the idea that effectivecitizenship includes making discriminating decisions about how and whetherto get involved in local governance, as well as being active per se. Our focusexcludes citizenship education within schools, although council activitiessupporting and extending the National Curriculum are considered. Theprimary reason for this is that there are already extensive ongoing studiesassessing citizenship education in schools (see, for example, Kerr & Cleaver,2004). To complement this existing research, our own study focused on thespecific contribution local authorities are making to engaging, educating

490 R. Andrews et al.

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and empowering all citizens. The paper therefore concludes with anexamination of the policy implications of the findings, especially withrespect to the role that all local authorities can and arguably should play insupporting effective citizenship.

Supporting Effective Citizenship

For the UK central government, citizenship has been positioned as integralto ‘a comprehensive revitalisation of the ethos of democracy, the strength ofcivil society, the citizen-orientation of public services, and the vibrancy ofcommunity life itself’ (Civil Renewal Unit, 2003: 6). Such claims raisesubstantial questions. There are clearly tensions between competinginterpretations of what active citizenship requires. But even operating withinthe government’s own terms of reference, there are questions about the extentto which efforts to support effective citizenship actually affect citizens’behaviour and values, or promote service improvement and democraticlegitimacy.

Policy Rationales

The concept of ‘citizenship’ is, of course, subject to a range of interpretations,with different implications for the role of the state. Since 1997, UK policydebates have centred on an ideal of ‘active citizenship’ which emphasises theneed for citizens to fulfil social and political obligations. This notion has avenerable history within political theory stretching back to Aristotle’sargument that the exercise of civic virtue was crucial to the flourishing of thepolis. It has also been associated closely with the values of local government.For example, Tocqueville (1966) claimed that a flourishing local civic culturewas the central feature of social life in developed democracies. Indeed, muchof the basis of local democracy rests on the fact that it is ‘the most accessibleavenue for political participation’ (Phillips, 1996: 26). None the less, despitewidespread agreement with T.H. Marshall’s (1992: 41) influential exhorta-tion that citizens should be ‘inspired by a lively sense of responsibilitytowards the welfare of the community’, the obligations associated with activecitizenship remain open to debate and have been subject to considerablecontestation. Civic-individualists regard the promotion of such citizenship asbeing concerned primarily with helping people to become volunteers andinformed consumers; civic-republicans, by contrast, emphasise directpolitical participation, while civic-pluralists focus on the need to build adiverse but cohesive civic culture. Although each of these positions haspermeated policy debates, civic-republican theories (e.g. Putnam, 1993; Tam,1998) suggesting that a vibrant, effective citizenry is associated with betterpolitical institutions have proved to be a substantial influence on NewLabour thinking on citizenship during the past decade (see, for example,Crick, 2007).

Effective Citizenship in Local Government 491

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Civic-republicans argue that members of local communities need to bewilling, able and equipped to get involved in public life (Oldfield, 1990).Realising this ideal requires government to go beyond simply providingpeople with the opportunity to participate, to disseminate the necessaryinformation to citizens and help them to acquire the skills and confidencethat they need in order to become more ‘active’. Civic-republicanstherefore propose that policies, such as public communications (Dagger,1996), civic education (Gutmann, 1999) and participation in decisionmaking (Tam, 1998), are essential to enable citizens to become more activein public affairs. Education for citizenship has been viewed historically as abasic function of local government (Sharpe, 1970). None the less, NewLabour thinking about the governance and delivery of public servicesdraws more heavily on consumerist approaches than on notions ofcitizenship, and often appears to elevate the needs and preferences ofservice users (or customers) over those of other stakeholders (Needham,2003). There has been a recognition that strengthening citizenship mayhelp to secure increased public satisfaction with local services (see Dean,2004; HM Government, 2006), with research suggesting that councillorsand officers often feel ‘more familiar and comfortable in regarding thepublic as ‘customers’, rather than ‘active citizens’ (Orr & McAteer, 2004:164; Slocum 2004). The case for promoting the democratic value ofcitizenship therefore faces considerable cultural barriers at both centraland local levels.

Cutting across these interpretative, theoretical differences are turf warsin the governmental machinery. While the department with leadresponsibility for local government has been keen to promote it as anarena for the exercise of citizenship, not all arms of government see localauthorities as a key partner in this enterprise. With its emphasis on ‘peopleand places’, the Department for Communities and Local Government (andits predecessors) has encouraged local government to engage citizens indecisions relating to service delivery and to devolve responsibility andbudgets to neighbourhoods (ODPM, 2005; DCLG 2006a). The HomeOffice, meanwhile, being less trustful of local authorities, supported anaction learning network of ‘Active Learning for Active Citizenship’facilitated by voluntary sector organisations and universities, albeitalongside sponsorship of Civic Pioneers. Furthermore, the Departmentfor Education and Skills’ introduction of citizenship education in schoolscoincided with a reduction in the resources for non-vocational educationfor adults (Mayo & Rooke, 2006). Given the multiple agendas beingpromoted by different government departments, it is perhaps unsurprisingthat declarations of cross-departmental support for ‘active citizenship’ (seeHM Government, 2006) have not been translated into a consistentmessage about what ministers see as the role of local authorities, and thatthere are still considerable differences across Whitehall in beliefs about thebenefits of support for citizenship.


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Evidence for Impacts?

Its advocates claim that the cultivation of active citizens has positive benefitsfor improving public services and the quality of local democracy. As well asenhancing the quality of life within their community, getting involved inlocal affairs can provide participants with opportunities to acquire skillsthrough training, and provide pathways into education and employment(see Mayo & Rooke, 2006). Yet there is very little empirical evidence thatparticular government interventions to promote citizenship generate theseoutcomes.

Looking first at democratic outcomes, various studies suggest thatyoung people with higher levels of civic knowledge are more confident ofparticipating effectively in politics as adults, more likely to undertakevoluntary action and more willing to vote (Kerr et al., 2002; John et al.,2003). The impacts of increasing adult political knowledge appear to varybetween countries: in Australia it increased political literacy andcompetence but not participation (McAllister, 1998), whereas in theDominican Republic and South Africa, civic education led to an increasein participation at local level (Finkel, 2002). Research has also suggestedthat supporting public participation initiatives with capacity building andfeedback sessions has improved education and social services outcomes(Barnes et al., 2004). There is evidence that councils’ efforts toimprove citizens’ understanding of citizenship and democracy areassociated with better service performance (Andrews et al., 2008). Anda number of studies have concluded that initiatives which empowercommunities can lead to better local decision making by drawing oncitizens’ first-hand knowledge and experience (Clapham et al., 2000; Fung& Wright, 2001).

While researchers have identified beneficial outcomes from assistingpeople in becoming more effective citizens, they have also identified risksand challenges facing any local authority seeking to realise them. The firstchallenge is to understand the exclusionary processes that may prevent somegroups and individuals from becoming effective citizens. Different methodsare necessary to reach different citizen groups, with particular effortsrequired to build the engagement capacity of the resource-poor if inequal-ities of power are not to be reproduced (Barnes et al., 2003). The presumedconnections between flourishing civil society and effective civic engagementare also open to question. While it is assumed widely that councils canharness the former to foster the latter, for many commentators, citizenshipincludes challenging power relations and social injustice, not just assistingrepresentative government within defined parameters (see Lister, 1997;Fillieule, 2003).

A second set of risks surrounds processes of learning. The importance ofexperiential learning (rather than formal class-based training) for effectivecitizenship is well recognised (see Annette, 2000). Involvement in the service


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activities of councils and political processes could provide people with usefullearning material. One example is citizens’ juries and similar exercises indeliberative democracy. Some jurors became more civically active as a resultand all parties gain new skills, knowledge and learning (Woodward, 2000).None the less, it is also important to recognise that different citizens maytake a variety of lessons from their experience of engaging with localgovernment, including negative ones. Ensuring that people’s experiences arepositive, places councils’ ability to maintain open, positive, responsivedecision-making institutions under considerable pressure. Local authoritiesmay, however, be ill-equipped to accommodate (and disinclined toencourage) ‘active, empowered, sometimes dissenting citizens’ (Woodward,2004: 10).

There are also doubts about the degree to which citizenship agendas areembedded within local government. The tools utilised by central govern-ment to promote effective citizenship outside schools (for example, therequirements for participation and partnership attached to regenerationfunding; Imrie & Raco, 2000) tend to be flexible, voluntary and project-based, whereas widening support for effective citizenship requires sub-stantial resources and sustained commitment. Such discretionary, cross-cutting activities often fare poorly in the face of the pursuit of efficiencysavings (Martin & Boaz, 2000). This fragility is exacerbated by thewidespread belief amongst council officers that the public as a whole haslittle interest in formal political processes (Yang, 2005), reinforced bynarratives of ‘consultation fatigue’.

Overall then, the existing evidence base on support for citizenship at alocal level is useful but not extensive, and so far there have been nostudies that directly examine the support given by local government,outside of the schools curriculum. The idea that local government playsan important role in cultivating effective citizenship, enabling localcommunities to participate collectively and meaningfully in democraticdecisions, though attractive in theory, is nevertheless in urgent need ofempirical testing.

Research Methodology

To research the ways in which English local authorities support citizenship,we adopted a two-stage, multi-method approach. The first stage involveddefining local citizenship practices in language that was accessible togovernment and other practitioners, and identifying the key factors thatwere shaping practice. This was achieved through an expert seminar withacademics, local and national government, and non-governmental bodies,and a preliminary analysis of 44 council websites. The findings from theseactivities fed into the second stage of the research, which involved moreintensive and extensive data collection, drawing on three sources ofempirical evidence:


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1. a national survey of local authority officers with responsibility forsupport for citizenship;

2. telephone interviews with local authority officers with responsibility forsupport for citizenship;

3. in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders ineight case study authorities.

A questionnaire survey exploring support for effective citizenship was sentto the Chief Executives in all English local authorities asking them to pass iton to the most appropriate officer within the council. The survey aimed toobtain an overall picture of existing practice and to identify leads fordetailed investigation through telephone interviews and case studies.Respondents were asked a series of closed and open-ended questions aboutsupport for citizenship in their authority. The survey was administeredelectronically over a twelve-week period in 2004. Of the 389 local authoritiesin England, fifteen indicated they were unable or unwilling to participate,leaving a sample population of 374. From this sample, 171 authoritiesresponded, producing an overall response rate of 44 per cent (20 countycouncils, 100 district councils, 16 London boroughs, 18 metropolitanboroughs, 17 unitary authorities). This survey represents the firstquantitative analysis of the views of local authority officers on support forcitizenship within local government.

Telephone interviews were conducted in 33 local authorities withrespondents to the questionnaire survey who indicated a willingness todiscuss support for citizenship in their authority in more depth. Semi-structured interview schedules were used, following strict principles ofconfidentiality, with the topic guide pursuing issues raised in earlier stages ofthe research. The information obtained from these interviews provided morein-depth insights into local authority support for citizenship across a rangeof councils, which assisted in our interpretation of the statistical analysis ofthe information obtained from the survey.

Detailed case studies were conducted in eight local authority areas. Theseinvolved in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key actors who wereinvolved in the delivery of citizenship practices, including council officers,elected members, representatives from other bodies plus focus groups withmembers of the public. Interviews were recorded and transcribed foranalysis. The case studies were identified purposively; we deliberatelyselected councils which the survey and telephone interviews suggested haddeveloped interesting practices, or which central government had nominatedas ‘Civic Pioneers’, key partners in Active Learning for Active Citizenshiplearning hubs, or Community Cohesion Pathfinders. This element of theresearch was designed to help identify ‘good practice’, but the case studieswere selected to represent important categories of English local governmentas a whole; spanning single and two-tier authorities, and councils servingrural as well as urban areas.


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Effective Citizenship in English Local Government

Almost three-quarters (78 per cent) of the respondents to the questionnairesurvey reported that supporting citizenship was either ‘very important’ or‘important’ to their local authority (answers were given on a five-pointLikert scale ranging from ‘very important’ to ‘not at all important’). Themain aims given by respondents for their authority’s support for effectivecitizenship are shown in Table 1. Interestingly, social disaffection andelectoral turnout do not appear to be major drivers. Local authorities seemto link effective citizenship much more closely with service improvement.This may reflect the way that in recent years government policy hasencouraged a shift towards ‘marketplace democracy’ based on consumeristprinciples (Needham, 2003); as one interviewee put it: ‘well informed citizensdrive up standards of public service organisations’ (Senior CorporateOfficer, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Borough). In this respect,both national and local government appear to be as one in moving awayfrom a concern with the renewal of representative democracy and towardsimproving service delivery as the primary rationale for citizenship activity.

In terms of the delivery structures utilised, almost all authorities (97 percent) were ‘driving’ citizenship work from the centre, either from the policydepartment, the chief executive’s office, or from units within the corporatecentre managing ‘Democratic’ or ‘Electoral Services’. Other departmentsplaying a key role included Community Development (29 per cent) andEducation Services/Schools (18 per cent); sections with responsibility forlifelong learning, tenant participation and youth services also contribute.Almost three-quarters (72 per cent) of respondents reported that theyworked in partnership with other agencies to support citizenship, usuallywith the police (cited by 42 per cent), local health trusts (42 per cent), thevoluntary sector (32 per cent) and other tiers of local government.

Respondents’ tended to elide the actions required to foster effectivecitizenship, with the structures through which community engagement takesplace, which in turn framed local authorities’ conceptions of how they

Table 1. Aims for supporting effective citizenship

What do your authority’s efforts tosupport effective citizenship aim to achieve? % of respondents citing it

Improve services 97Increase public confidence 95Improve decision making 92Raise citizen awareness 91Increase citizen engagement 91Meet corporate objectives 90Increase citizen understanding 86Reduce disaffection 72Increase electoral turnout 70


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should support effective citizenship. Our survey also asked informants toprovide details on the types of activities they were undertaking to supporteffective citizenship; again, the activities most frequently cited byrespondents involved developing mechanisms and institutions for publicengagement and participation in local governance, notably new forums andnetworks. Table 2 categorises the main activities that respondents cited.

Another important finding was that comparatively few respondentsreported initiatives that reinforced conventional representative democracy.Only nine per cent said that their authority was making efforts to increaseelectoral turnout and voter registration or encourage more participation atcouncil meetings.

Table 2 shows that local authorities often identified citizenship-relatedactivities with structures and processes of engagement, such as citizens’panels and area forums, rather than activities explicitly concerned withlearning or capacity-building. Of course, the institutional design of localgovernance is important for promoting participation (Lowndes & Wilson,2001). Given that citizens’ perceptions of the opportunities open to them forinfluencing decisions may be as important as the personal political skillsneeded to encourage engagement (Fahmy, 2004), structures, networks andresponsive political arrangements can be vital prerequisites for promotingcitizenship. None the less, questions remain about the skills, confidence andwillingness of different groups of citizens to make the most of new structures.The paper now examines in greater detail the extent to which local authoritieswere engaging with, informing and educating, and ultimately empoweringcitizens.

Engaging with Local Citizens

The research sought to identify activities through which councils wereattempting to build a culture of engagement in local decision making. This is

Table 2. Successful citizenship-related activities in local government

What are the three most important citizenship-relatedactivities that your local authority is engaged in?

% of respondentsundertaking it

% regarded assuccessful orvery successful

Citizen/neighbourhood panels 30 78Youth forum, council or parliament 25 79Area forums/committees 22 63Schools liaison 15 80Consultations 14 61Engagement with Black and MinorityEthnic (BME) groups/young people

14 70

Local Democracy Week 11 63Community/neighbourhood planning 11 47Older people/tenants’ forums 10 53Electoral turnout drives 9 53Participation in council meetings 9 56


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a complex undertaking, given the requirement for different approaches toreach different groups of citizens, which, in turn may reflect the multiplecivic identities. In simple terms, as citizens (in the formal sense) local peoplevote in council elections; as consumers they use local services; and as‘shareholders’ they pay local (and national) taxes (Gyford, 1991: 181). Asnoted above, in Table 2, citizenship-related activities identified as importantby local authorities do reflect these alternative institutional circumstancesand identities. None the less, while the interests of individual citizens mayvary across different institutional and political settings, the civic-republicanideal of active citizenship implies that rights and duties cannot be linked soeasily with any one aspect of service provision or the political process(Andrews & Turner, 2006); nor can the identities of ‘consumer’ or ‘citizen’be contained neatly within certain spheres of activity (Slocum, 2004). Oneconsequence is that local authorities wishing to support the learningassociated with effective citizenship must seek to effect broader culturalchange both within and beyond their organizational boundaries. Table 3summarises the survey evidence of changes in working practices thatcouncils introduced to enhance their ability to support effective citizenship.

At one level, these responses suggest that a proportion of councils aremaking organisational and operational changes to impose some coherenceon hitherto ad hoc approaches to public engagement. This co-ordination isintended to foster better scheduling of participation with other bodies and,in some cases, to provide a structure for organisational learning abouteffective engagement. It was also clear from our telephone and case studyinterviews that some councils were introducing action plans to promotedemocracy, as well as ‘concordats’ or ‘Engagement Charters’ to signifygreater responsiveness to particular audiences and codify citizenshipprinciples across council staff. For example, one council had instituted an

Table 3. Internal changes for supporting citizenship

Has your local authority introduced any internalworking practices to make it moreresponsive and open to its citizens? % of respondents citing it

Consultation strategy, guidance or toolkit 25Improved web access and support 20Contact centres or one-stop shops 18Customer care policy or complaints procedure 16Communications strategy or manager 15Equalities training or guidance 9Citizenship or customer training 8Citizens’ panels 7Communications guidelines 7Increased public speaking rights 7Community development plan or participation plan 6Community development/democracy team 5


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‘Accountability Clause’, requiring it to respond within 28 days when youthrepresentatives formally raise an issue for consideration.

Of course, the introduction of new structures to enhance engagement maynot necessarily imply dramatic changes in councils’ openness to citizeninputs, or in who actually gets involved. Indeed, translating openness intoresponsiveness, in the face of competing priorities is an enduring problem.Our survey respondents confirmed the existence of familiar barriers tocitizenship work, such as time and resources (83 per cent) and the perceivedlack of public interest (54 per cent). In one council, poor staff retention anda lack of appropriate training had led to the curtailment of many activitiesthat had been delivering citizenship outcomes. Rivalries between commu-nities were also cited as a significant barrier to generating local commitmentto shared decision making. For some district council interviewees, the two-tier structure of county and district level organisation hampered efforts togenerate political will for citizenship work. And new structures or initiativessuch as Local Strategic Partnerships or Local Area Agreements may do littleto affect the underlying balance of power between government and citizen:‘What the community wants has to fit in with someone else’s agenda’, butthe ‘community doesn’t always fit in with strategic plans’ (Locality Forumco-ordinator, Tewkesbury Borough Council).

In some instances, new participatory structures were backed byorganisational support and resources for citizens’ engagement. Exampleswere found of community facilitators helping to broker relations betweendiverse social groups and the council. In other local authorities, ‘boundaryspanners’ worked long hours sustaining citizenship-related activities.Developing local grass-roots networks is another important means forsupporting citizenship. One council’s Community Development Unit setup a Community Engagement Network which enabled local groups toshare expertise in participation. The research confirmed the essential roleof skilled social workers and youth service staff in delivering a learningdimension to citizenship with their client groups, building confidence and‘helping them to think the process through and about what’s achievableand what’s not achievable’ (Youth Officer, Rochdale MetropolitanBorough Council).

Informing and Educating Local Citizens

For many councils, the provision of information is integral to theirconception of supporting effective citizenship: raising public awareness andunderstanding were key aims for their actions in this sphere (see Table 1).But importantly it was often unclear how far councils went beyond afamiliar public information role, to foster effective learning aboutdemocratic processes.

Websites are seen increasingly by authorities as a vehicle for informing thepublic about what local government does, including information on


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citizenship-related activities (e.g. voting and elections; committee meetingsand agendas; constitutional and organisational structures; and, advice onhow to get involved in service delivery). While the provision of suchinformation is a valuable basis for effective citizenship, the educational roleof councils’ websites is less clear. On the one hand – along with other well-publicised innovations like ‘one stop shops’ and council call centres – theymake it easier to begin to engage with local authorities, but, on the otherhand, they can disguise the complex realities of democratic decision-makingprocesses. Our (admittedly limited) analysis of websites supported thecontention that most local authorities see the internet as a one-way means ofinformation provision, rather than as a forum for discursive deliberation(Zavestoski et al., 2006). These tensions between merely informing andactively educating were recognised by officers involved in consulting localcitizens:

It’s always about trying to strike that balance between the mundaneand the more esoteric subjects really. There’ll always be people whowant to talk about recycling and how they recycle their Yellow Pagesand trading standards and parking and stuff, and there’ll be peoplewho are willing to take part in more kind of intangible debates(Corporate Policy and Projects Manager, Camden Council).

Beyond their websites, councils engaged in a host of practices tocommunicate with local people, and draw them into democratic processes.This included novel means of raising awareness about citizenship and localdemocracy, such as a Community Conference following race riots in onelocality and a ‘Big Day Out’ celebrating cultural diversity in another. Suchone-off activities are often accompanied by opportunities to register forparticipation in the long term through mechanisms like citizens’ panels andother forums. Many councils also experimented with technologies, formatsand venues to reduce the unfamiliarity of democratic processes: includingtelevision and video (for example, television-style ‘Question Time’sessions); virtual-reality events (such as ‘‘I’m a Councillor: Get Me outof here’’); SMS messaging and web-casts; experiments with e-voting onlocal issues, or physically moving council processes to enable people ‘toaddress their own councillor on their own territory’ (Township manager,Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council), for example, via an ‘ExecutiveRoadshow’. This was particularly popular among authorities withdispersed, rural constituencies. To inform citizens of the potential efficacyof their engagement, one London Borough developed posters, leafletsand articles on the right to get involved and took steps, prior to newelections, to ensure that people were aware of the previous result. Thedissemination of information on opportunities for participation throughspecially designed beer-mats is just one further example of projectsusing a different medium to reach those disengaged from traditional


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decision-making processes – in this instance targeting young, working classwhite males.

Overall, the research showed that young people are the main targetgroup for councils’ educational initiatives – among 77 per cent ofresponding councils – with the national Local Democracy Week1 provinga key vehicle in many authorities. Specific projects identified byinterviewees as enhancing the capacity of young people to be effectivecitizens included street warden initiatives in schools, efforts to re-engageexcluded pupils through drama, music and art, as well as the morefamiliar Youth Councils, Young Mayors and youth conferences. Schoolvisits – of councillors to schools and school children to council premises –remain a mainstay of council support for citizenship, now linked to theNational Curriculum. Again, youth service departments often provedcritical in developing the citizenship learning outcomes for young people,and ensuring that ‘there has been genuine space for them and their ideasand issues’ (Youth officer, Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council). Asmaller proportion of councils focused citizenship initiatives on Black andMinority Ethnic groups (38 per cent), the elderly (25 per cent) and thedisabled (19 per cent).

A range of training courses for adults was also provided by councils,covering community leadership, public speaking, Information and Com-munications Technology, advocacy, representation, working with politicalparties, argument and debating skills, and service assessment. This trainingwas often targeted at actual or would-be community representatives fromparticular sectors, such as tenants or minority ethnic groups, with paths toaccredited learning where appropriate. Also under way in a few instanceswere activities that utilise people from target groups to educate council staffand elected members about their engagement needs, or to act as peers,mentors and trainers to the wider public. For example, in one countycouncil the youth service ‘work with a group of young people to enable themto become assessors of youth work for us and with us’ (Youth Officer,Worcestershire County Council).

Many of the councils surveyed also provided internal training pro-grammes, to give officers and members the skills to work with a more activecitizenry, including communicating with disadvantaged groups and learninghow to listen and respond. Reference was also made to: citizenship awards;courses on chairing meetings and taking minutes; a Young Managersinitiative run by the Youth Service; Training Development Programmes (forcommunity activists) and the Improvement and Development Agency’sLeadership Academy programme. As one Youth Democracy Officer(Wiltshire County Council) emphasised: ‘the more of this work that youdo . . . people need to be skilled to make sure that it happens . . . it’s like asnowball effect’. The article now examines councils’ evaluation of outcomes,especially of the extent to which citizenship work has empowered localpeople.


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Empowering Local Citizens?

A degree of consensus about what constitutes ‘good practice’ is evidentacross the ‘active citizenship’ policy community (see HM Government,2006: 42–46).2 However, evaluating the relative effectiveness of differentkinds of citizenship activity in empowering local citizens is difficult.Research revealed that most local authorities struggled to demonstratewhether their activities had been successful. This is partly because the notionof effective citizenship is contested – what is useful, instrumentally for acouncil may be of less benefit to individual citizens, making involvement andnon-involvement difficult to interpret. Furthermore, inculcating the capacity,confidence and willingness to become more civically active takes time.Respondents from Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council and CamdenCouncil, both Civic Pioneers, felt that their approaches had been relativelysuccessful, and attributed this to a lengthy history of trying to developinclusive, open and pluralistic decision-making structures. (Indeed, it is onlyby furnishing concrete evidence of their commitment to such processes thatauthorities were able to secure their status as Civic Pioneers; Gaffney, 2005.)The policy learning gathered in authorities with a long history ofempowerment provoked wide-ranging and useful reflections: ‘(We) did itsort of firstly fifteen years ago and ha(ve) a lot of experience I think inknowing what works and what doesn’t work and (are) aware of some of thekind of pitfalls as well as some of the real strengths’ (Policy officer, City ofBradford Metropolitan District Council).

Teasing out the extent of citizen empowerment from broader patterns ofinvolvement is also a challenge for evaluation. Education and communitydevelopment professionals may be able to observe subtle changes in theyoung people they work with: ‘a difference in attitudes . . . they are moreconfident, they have more self-esteem, they seem to walk differently’ (Youthworker, Tewkesbury Borough Council). However, most local governmentpractitioners relied on simple, familiar and quantifiable indicators to assesstheir activities, such as voter turnout, website hits, numbers of attendees atevents or meetings, post-initiative evaluations or equality targets. Someauthorities used existing Best Value Performance Indicators to measure theimpact of their work. Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council usedcommunity safety indicators, while a number of other councils sought to‘develop PIs that reflect public needs as well as our own internal processes’(Democratic Services Officer, London Borough of Hillingdon Council). Thetargets in Local Public Service Agreements, including youth turnout, andthe representativeness of decision-making bodies were also shaping the wayin which citizenship outcomes were assessed by local authorities.

Interpreting the wider benefits of supporting citizenship for communityempowerment, is, however, problematic. It was found that very few councils(less than five per cent of those surveyed) had attempted to assess em-powerment in terms of awareness and attitudinal changes (e.g. willingness to


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be involved, sense of efficacy) or social capital (e.g. successful grant bidsfrom target communities). The telephone interviewees and case studiesprovided some examples where a degree of empowerment was achieved.Community development workers in Ipswich were informed by local policethat their work had led to improved social relations in previously troubledareas. Bradford’s Neighbourhood Action Plan achieved exemplar status forits connection between improving local quality of life and communityempowerment.

Many of the activities identified in this research found councils connectingtheir citizenship work to the promotion of community cohesion andregeneration. This is an important sphere in which central government is co-constructing the citizenship agenda at a local level (Imrie & Raco, 2000).For example, one council was able to ‘engage with all parts of thecommunity’ through its involvement with the Home Office in delivering‘Connecting Communities’. This brought minority ethnic groups intodecision-making processes, and ‘empowered their members to find theirway around the bureaucratic system’ (Democratic Services Officer, LondonBorough of Hillingdon Council). Similarly, Ealing Council used theNeighbourhood Renewal Unit’s Community Empowerment Fund to setup a Community Network that had grown to 350 member groups. Whilevarious government funding streams enabled local citizenship-orientatedinitiatives, these activities are subject to the vicissitudes of short-term,project-based resources. Councils themselves have devolved small amountsof spending to targeted audiences to incentivise citizenship: thus the YouthDemocracy Team in Wiltshire County Council introduced grants in schools‘to get their own thing up and happening’ (Democracy Officer). Despite theencouraging evidence on citizen empowerment uncovered by this research,the evaluation and measurement of the effectiveness of citizenship activitiesremains an important area for systematic empirical investigation.

Conclusions

In setting the context for this paper, we noted how policies to providesupport for effective citizenship emerged from recent civic republicantheories, but had become translated, by the government’s own admission,into a ‘disparate collection of practices’ (HM Government, 2006: 50). How,then, have local authorities interpreted and taken forward this agenda?What is perceived to be working or desirable, and what does this revealabout the institutionalisation of citizenship at local level?

Councils in England can point to a growing diversity of citizenship-related activities, with a widening of the mechanisms for engaging diversegroups of citizens, and thus of the potential spaces for learning abouteffective citizenship. ‘Citizenship’ has become a label applied to a wide rangeof local democratic practices but, beyond formal education in the classroom,it is a highly mutable concept, often associated by council officers with the


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more familiar concepts of communications, and structures and processes forpublic participation. Research found little evidence of reflection bypractitioners on the learning content of citizenship activities, or muchconsensus about the tangible outcomes – for citizens or councils. This maybe an indication of the confusion surrounding the concept of citizenship andwhat it means to support or promote it. It also signifies that there is still verylittle evidence to substantiate wider claims about either the ability of localauthorities to deliver learning for effective citizenship, or the potentialimpacts of local authority support for citizenship on local people.

While many local authorities have been pushed to do better by growingconcern about community cohesion, participation requirements attached toregeneration funding, the wider public sector reform agenda and electoralchange, those that claim to be particularly effective in this field havetypically been engaged in promoting effective citizenship for some time, andhave acquired considerable experience. For councils to be successful in thisendeavour, steps to build civic capacity must therefore be designed-in ratherthan assumed-in to local governance arrangements (Lowndes & Sullivan,2004), and it was noticeable that the more active councils had typicallyenjoyed a helpful conjunction of government initiatives, external fundingand committed personnel.

The diffuseness of ‘citizenship’ as a policy area, and the competing andcontested interpretations to which it is subjected, also make it difficult toresearch citizenship activities in practice and to track their impact. Thisstudy has made an exploratory first step towards understanding what ishappening at local level, but it is clear that there is a need for more rigorousresearch to elicit answers to fundamental questions about the links betweencitizenship and local government. Two areas in particular warrant furtherinvestigation. The first, and more practice-orientated agenda, concerns theway in which council officers appear to elide interventions to supportcitizenship with existing structures and processes for public involvement.This begs questions about whether the learning dimension of effectivecitizenship is given sufficient attention by local authorities. Equally, perhapsthe prime way in which councils can promote effective citizenship is bydemonstrating to people that their contribution to local democracy is valuedand appreciated, by ensuring that opportunities for involvement in localgovernance offer positive, informative and confidence-inspiring lessons andultimately make a difference.

The second area concerns the still generally weak understanding of theimpacts of the initiatives that central government has been promoting and(some) in local government have been implementing. This raises questionsabout the extent to which lasting changes in council–citizenry relations havebeen (or can be) deeply embedded across all local authorities. Indeed, futurestudies should examine the long-term consequences of particular construc-tions of, and rationales for, promoting citizenship by local government, interms of the impacts on levels of knowledge, engagement and identities


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amongst local citizens. It will also be important to consider the extent towhich support for effective citizenship creates ‘active citizens’. If, as theseresults suggest, the predominant rationale is orientated towards serviceimprovement, the significant move towards citizen-centred democracy(Andrews & Turner, 2006) envisaged by some academics and activistsmay not square readily with the conceptions of citizenship held by localgovernment officers.

Acknowledgement

This paper draws on data collected for research funded by the (then)Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The views expressed are, however,those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of theDepartment. The authors acknowledge assistance from Suzannah Lux incollecting the data, and place on record gratitude to the many localauthority officers who participated in the research. Thanks also go to thetwo anonymous referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft ofthis paper.

Notes

1 Local Democracy Week is a key part of an ongoing campaign to get young people (up to the

age of 26) more involved in their community and wider democratic processes. It is run by the

Local Government Association, UK Youth Parliament, British Youth Council and National

Youth Agency.

2 Notably the web-based Active Citizenship Centre, set up by the Home Office, replaced in

2005 with the Together We Can Forum, see http://www.togetherwecan.info.

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