The Constitution Unit Blog

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Coronavirus
  • Brexit
  • Parliament
    • House of Commons
    • House of Lords
    • All
  • Elections and referendums
    • 2019 general election
    • 2017 general election
    • EU referendum
    • 2015 general election
    • All
  • Democratic Engagement and Citizens’ Assemblies
  • Government
    • Cabinet manual
    • Coalition
    • Special advisers
    • All
  • Devolution
    • Scotland
    • Wales
    • Northern Ireland
    • England
    • All
  • Events
  • Other themes
    • Judiciary and human rights
      • All
    • Parties and politicians
    • Constitutions and constitution making
    • Freedom of information
    • Monarchy, church and state
    • International
  • Staff contributors
    • Meg Russell
    • Alan Renwick
    • Robert Hazell
    • Sam Anderson
    • Dave Busfield-Birch
    • Roberta Damiani
    • Lotte Hargrave
    • Lisa James
    • Rebecca McKee
    • Luke Moore
    • Honorary staff
      • Daniel Gover
      • Bob Morris
      • Patrick O’Brien
      • Akash Paun
      • Brian Walker
      • Alan Whysall
      • Ben Worthy
      • Ben Yong
  • Constitution Unit website
  • About the Constitution Unit
  • Copyright

Tag Archives: Leeds climate change citizens' jury

Local citizens’ assemblies in the UK: an early report card

Posted on January 8, 2021 by The Constitution Unit

Citizens’ assemblies are now being widely used in the UK and elsewhere to promote thoughtful policy discussion. But do they actually work in terms of delivering substantive policy change? In this post, Robert Liao addresses that question by looking at local citizens’ assemblies in the UK. He finds that the record is overwhelmingly positive: councils that have invested in running an assembly have generally followed through with action.

The past 18 months have seen a wave of citizens’ assemblies in the UK and beyond. At the national level, there have been assemblies on climate change in the UK, Scotland, and France, on constitutional issues in Scotland and Germany, and on gender equality in Ireland. This post focuses on the numerous assemblies convened by local authorities. Citizens’ assemblies are widely lauded for bringing together representative samples of the population to learn about and produce recommendations on difficult policy questions. As shown by the Constitution Unit’s 2017 Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit, the deliberative conversations that they engender point to a better way of doing democratic conversation. But do they have a real impact beyond the people in the room? In particular, do elected officials really listen to them, and can they bring about substantive political change? 

The table below summarises evidence from local citizens’ assemblies in the UK. By trawling through assembly and council websites and reports, alongside press releases, and news articles, I have identified 13 citizens’ assemblies convened by local authorities in the UK since the beginning of 2019 which have completed their work and published reports. Three of these – in Cambridge, Dudley, and Romsey – were supported by the UK government’s Innovation in Democracy programme, designed to enable assembly pilots (the IIDP’s work was summarised on the Unit blog, here). In others, local authorities acted independently. Reflecting perhaps campaigning for citizens’ assemblies by Extinction Rebellion, seven of the 13 assemblies focused on climate change, and another two on the related topic of air quality. Two looked at urban regeneration, one at hate crime, and one at social care provision. Each one has presented a report containing policy recommendations to its sponsoring council.

Continue reading →
Posted in Public Engagement and Policy Making | Tagged Brent climate assembly, camden citizens' assembly, Camden Health and Care Citizens' Assembly, citizens' assemblies, Citizens' Assembly on Brexit, Croydon Citizens' Assembly, Dudley people's panel, Greater Cambridge Citizens' Assembly, Innovation in Democracy Programme, Kingston citizens' assembly, Lancaster District People's Jury, Leeds climate change citizens' jury, local government, Newham Citizens' Assembly, Oxford citizens' assembly, robert liao, Romsey citizens' assembly, Waltham Forest Citizens' Assembly | 1 Comment

Taking Back Control

Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland

Monitor 76: Democratic lockdown?

My Tweets

Enter your e-mail address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by e-mail.

Join 2,337 other followers

Unit Mailing List: Sign up to receive notifications of of our events, newsletter and publications

Mailing List

The Unit at 25: celebrating 25 achievements

Parliament and Brexit

Improving discourse during election and referendum campaigns

The Independent Commission on Referendums

Blog at WordPress.com.
Cancel