Citizen Engagement

23rd March 2006

The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) and the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames looked at the key issues of citizen engagement at a jointly hosted event on 22 March 2006. The key issues included looking at ways local people can reconnect to public service delivery in their communities.

Speakers at the event looked at how different models of neighbourhood governance can operate and be effective on the ground. The parliamentary under secretary of state at Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick MP, in his speech, demanded that their needs to be more empowerment of local people.

Mr Fitzpatrick MP said "We need to be able to empower people where they live, putting in place a can do framework for this to be achieved"

"To empower communities we need to be able to provide them with a menu of options, not one size fits all, and we do not want to impose too many boundaries'

"One of the ways that this can be achieved is by simplifying how parish councils can be established, and removing barriers to them being set up in London"

Cllr Derek Osbourne, leader of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames echoed these comments by saying, "The neighbourhoods model which we have established in Kingston works for us, it would not necessarily work elsewhere. Local communities need to have a broad enabling mechanism in place to come up with their own solutions, rather than any form of imposition"

John Findlay, chief executive of NALC commented, "We must remember that this debate is not supposed to be about devolution, but about the empowerment of communities. The new localism agenda has moved on a long way.

"Empowerment should be spontaneous from the community, and the bodies which are established need to be able to exercise real power, as well as being democratically accountable. Parish councils can already achieve this"

For more information contact Alan Jones on tel: 020 7290 0316 alan.jones@nalc.gov.uk or Jack Taylor on tel: 020 8547 4614 or Press.Comms@rbk.kingston.gov.uk