Part of Notwestminster, a free event for everyone who has something positive to say about local democracy and anyone who is up for the challenge of making it better.
What is it?
We’re holding a Democracy Maker Day where anyone who is already doing (or who wants to do) something practical to improve our local democracy can work together with others in our network.
The Maker Day is jointly hosted by Involve and the Notwestminster network.
We’ll be exploring what role deliberative democracy could play in solving challenging local issues and giving local citizens a say over the decisions that affect them.
Who is it for?
Anyone is welcome to join in:
Digital makers
Local government officers
Councillors and candidates
Community activists
Hyperlocals
Open data advocates
Researchers and students
Voters of today and tomorrow
If you're interested in taking part, please register now.
What we'll be working on
Deliberative democracy focuses on giving people the information, time and support to carefully consider an issue, weighing up the different perspectives and options, before deciding what to do. One of the ways its most often practised is through “mini-publics” (such as citizens' assemblies and citizens' juries), which bringing together groups of randomly selected, but demographically representative, citizens to learn about an issue and to deliberate, before reaching a decision.
Deliberative democracy is being used around the world to reconnect people with decision-making and to tackle difficult issues. Some important issues that have already been considered in this way include abortion in Ireland, nuclear energy in South Korea, and adult social care in England. But why doesn’t more of this kind of decision-making happen in local government in the UK? And how could it?
Our main challenge will be:
How could deliberative democracy be introduced to councils, to involve citizens in tackling local issues?
If you know anything about local government or deliberative democracy, if you’d like to learn about how it works, or if you’d like to explore new ways of involving citizens in decision-making, this event is for you!
Get involved
Come along to get more involved in the practical work of strengthening our local democracy.
If you have ideas for other things you’d like to work on during the day you can email at notwestminster@gmail.com, tweet using #notwestminster or join in on Slack