You don’t need opinion polls to know that few people nowadays trust their elected members or government. Casual conversations will have revealed the low opinion of decision-makers held by the average citizen, from the town hall to 10 Downing Street. But if you did consult some statistics, you’d find your hunch confirmed.
The British Social Attitudes survey shows that a record high 45% of us “almost never” trust governments to put the nation’s interests first, up from 34% in 2019. Furthermore, 79% of us now say the system of governing Britain needs “a lot of improvement”.
Our Life in the UK Index found that 73% of UK citizens feel that they cannot influence decisions affecting the UK, while 56% feel that they are unable to influence decisions at a local level, and a dispiriting 52% have low trust in the UK government.
At Carnegie UK, we believe that we should all have a voice in the decisions that affect our lives – what we describe as democratic wellbeing. But these statistics confirm what we already knew: that trust in the traditional democratic model is at an alarmingly low ebb.
Some civil servants might be keen to lay the blame for this trend on certain politicians and the scandals that surrounded their careers. But many officials would privately admit that their department or agency’s approach to engaging with the public leaves a lot to be desired.
Despite all the current noises off around Sue Gray's salary, it was refreshing to see the prime minister's chief of staff make clear her support for citizens' juries and assemblies earlier this year.
Media coverage suggested she was impressed by the recent transformational success of citizens’ juries in Ireland that had built consensus for constitutional changes including ending the ban on abortion and allowing gay marriage.
"Some civil servants might be keen to lay the blame for this trend on certain politicians and the scandals that surrounded their careers. But many would privately admit that their department's approach to engaging with the public leaves a lot to be desired"
It hasn’t been reported whether Ms Gray had been following developments and discussion of the benefits of similar participative approaches in the UK. But she wouldn’t have to dig too deeply to find research reports such as Demos's Citizens’ White Paper which reflect on the transformational potential of this model.
At Carnegie UK, we too have been asking what can be learned from recent examples of participatory processes so that these models become more useful for public bodies and meaningful for the citizens that participate.
Our new report examines the experience of people who took part in a selection of recent participatory initiatives. We also talked to those who had either commissioned or facilitated participative approaches.
The good news is that we found that these models can help to restore citizens’ trust in politics and democracy, with participants reporting that it helped them understand the issues at play as well as gaining insight into other people’s perspectives. Concerningly, though, we heard that this positivity fades if there is no subsequent communication about what – if any – difference their participation eventually made.
We also found that the design of these processes matters, with feedback suggesting that effort needs to be applied to create an appropriate forum where all voices matter. Officials tasked with designing participatory engagements must be clear from the outset about the outcomes they’re trying to achieve and the change that’s in scope.
Given these findings, we’re making the case for the development of minimum standards for these processes so that everyone involved gets the most out of them. Elections don’t run themselves, and we shouldn’t expect new forms of democratic processes to operate on sticky tape and good will.
Our report also argues that initiatives such as citizens’ panels and juries can’t become dislocated from traditional decision-making processes. While Sue Gray’s support for these models might have been interpreted in the media as ruse to bypass ministers or Whitehall, we believe that they’ll only work if the traditional holders of power are exposed to these processes and hold them to be legitimate.
That's why none of this enthusiasm for new approaches should be regarded as a threat to representative democracy or its institutions. Meaningful participation can offer a new tool for ministers and their advisers to tackle problems regarded as intractable. It can offer a democratic mandate for new approaches and provide valuable perspectives from people who live outside our traditional structures of power and influence. It presents an opportunity for public servants to develop new practices and to learn about engaging and effective ways of presenting and discussing evidence.
Now is the time to make participation meaningful and useful for everyone involved, or risk further alienation from the political process. That would be the real threat to our democracy.
Sarah Davidson is chief executive of wellbeing policy charity Carnegie UK and former Director General of the Scottish Government