Last week's Green Paper on Governance of Britain:

"The Government currently supports the recruitment of thousands of
citizens to take on a wide range of lay governance and scrutiny roles
(eg, school governors, health trust members and tenant representatives).  Once recruited, however, they receive little support and there is no overall co-ordination of the contribution that they make. The Government will explore how citizens who have the potential and willingness to contribute to public decision making can be better encouraged and supported to realise that potential, in a much more systematic and cost effective way."

A national Community Governance Service, anybody?

Down at Demos we have been working on ways to put some of these high falutin’ ideas into practice for some time now. The Community Governance Service that fits the bill here is one of the recommendations in ‘Community Participation: Who Benefits?’ a report we published with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2006.

We were speaking about all this yesterday in Cheltenham at the Summer Seminars at the Spa, where the assembled throng of local councillors and parish clerks were looking for practical ideas to connect with their communities.

Have a look at the report’s recommendations, and the 1% solution for realising the potential of participation.

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