Who’s in charge here?

This week at the sustainable communities summit in Manchester, deputy prime minister John Prescott unveiled proposals to involve local people in the management of their communities.

“Neighbourhood arrangements” – a central plank of the second part of Prescott’s five-year plan, also known as People, Places and Prosperity – would give “real power” to communities to tackle local priorities such as antisocial behaviour, litter or graffiti.

This is the government’s attempt to restore faith in democracy at a time when less than a third of voters turn out for local elections. Its admirable intention is to convince people that they can make a difference; the problem is that this proposal looks more like a tacit confirmation that they can’t.

People already have the power to make a difference in their communities through their elected councillors. They stop choosing to use their vote when they see that nothing changes – streets stay dirty, muggers roam free. The way to convince people their votes count is to fix the flawed systems already in place to deal with these problems, not to bypass them and oblige local people to step in and do it themselves.

Of course services should reflect neighbourhood priorities, but providers shouldn’t need a community meeting to tell them that people want to live in places where they feel safe and that aren’t covered in graffiti. People in poorer areas want the same cleanliness and security that their middle-class neighbours take for granted. They too pay taxes to public bodies to do this, why should they give up their time as well?

People already have the power to make a difference through elections. They stop voting when nothing changes

The problems that most frequently top local people’s wishlists – litter, vandalism, low-level crime – usually come under the auspices of more than one service, and these neighbourhood bodies are being touted as a way to bring them together. But isn’t this what local strategic partnerships are for? If police, health, education, housing and environmental services are sitting down to coordinate their services, it is evidently not filtering down to ward or neighbourhood level.

This is where Prescott’s plan does show genuine promise for strengthening democracy, by making each councillor directly responsible for the services delivered in their ward. Housing associations also have a valuable role to play here: they could coordinate mini strategic partnerships on a neighbourhood level, as Touchstone does in one area of Wolverhampton under the ODPM’s neighbourhood renewal scheme. Registered social landlords are often streets ahead at community participation and could teach other local bodies much about listening to what tenants really want.

There is already a formidable amount of bureaucracy between citizens and the people who spend their taxes – there’s no need to create more. It’s time to concentrate on making existing systems work better; then people will see how their votes affect their neighbourhoods. The real verdict on whether the government has improved public services will not come in May, but in the turnout figures for the next local elections.