So the neighbourhood forums went ahead on Wednesday and Thursday and no one seemed to notice. I could not get to the South West forum on Thursday as 5.30pm is not exactly work friendly.
Kevin Algar has a good report on the South West forum, which points to a certain futility to the whole experience. Sally Wainman also writes about the North East and North West area forums although without Kevin’s rather biting style. She still thinks that this is not a game to Labour, bless her. Sally had one very good idea – monitoring public attendance.
From various reports we seemed to have the following results
- Resident participation for all four forums put together was in single figures
- The forums were held for the councillors’ rather than the residents benefit – being in the council chamber which is closer for Phil Smart or Bryony Rudkin than a drafty church hall in the middle of Bridge or Chantry (not to mention councillor’s parking)
- The meetings were far too formal
- There was no notification to people who had attended before
- As Ipswich Spy has pointed out the forums seem to have one over-riding aim now – to replicate what had gone on before
The acid test of this change – supported by the Liberal Democrats and Ipswich Spy, and with Tory abstentions – was whether it would bring more people in. It brought in less. Fingers on one hand type numbers.
There had been no attempt to see if similar changes had been tried before in other councils, no attempt to debate other changes and suggest these to neighbourhood forums. It’s a complete shambles.
Neighbourhood forums are not important to councillors and council officials but they are the closest thing to direct democracy that we have in Ipswich. They are important because they are a chance, admittedly an imperfect chance, for the people to control the agenda.
This was not simply a failure of the Labour Party in Ipswich – that David Ellesmere is an incompetent manager is hardly news – it’s a failure of the whole political class in Ipswich.
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