How does this impact on Community Wellbeing? You can have the best services in the world & still not feel good in yourself. Wellbeing is self-esteem but transferred to a community setting. Local decision making helps people to feel that they have some measure of control over what happens locally. They have a say in change, their views are important & listened to. Empowers those normally reluctant to speak up. Not all folk are NIMBY s. Paves the way for other changes e.g. Basic Income for all, Green initiatives to help the environment. Laying foundation stones for the future.Promoting self-sufficiency & resilience in communities. Binds people to local goals to benefit all.Works well in other European states Germany, Sweden, Finland, German Landers etc-so why not Scotland. We complain about London centric policies but Scotland is Edinburgh/Glasgow centric. What works there will not apply to my rural area & vice versa Why should the Committee focus on this as part of their future work? Because we are meant to be planning for a better future rather than a continuation of the mistakes we've already made. The talents we have in our communities are being ignored in favour of the professionally qualified looking to make a fast buck. They come into local areas make a hash of it & locals left to fix it e.g. my rebuilt village hall-not been touched for 3 years-still not available for community use. Community can do nothing as LA owned.We all pay the price of these failures & eyesores
It is all too easy for this to become a tokenistic exercise. Consultations are again all too often paper exercises carried out by agencies who have already decided what they are going to do. Participation is therefore, at best half hearted. For this to be effective citizens / communities need to be able to frame the questions being asked i.e. to set the agenda through a deliberative process. In order to achieve this engagement needs to take place facilitated by skilled and motivated workers.
You still need people to be actively involved at Community Council or similar level. Many people still won't bother but if the effort's made continuously to bring folk in (an results are there to be seen) then maybe the upcoming generations will in time find this to be the norm.
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation