Cambridge Liberal Democrat Manifesto 1998 Making Cambridge More Democratic

Many people feel alienated from much of what local government does. They feel that they are not listened to and that the Council follows a political agenda that does not reflect ordinary, everyday concerns. The first priority of a Liberal Democrat city council will therefore be to make the Council more open and democratic.

Labour’s approach is to spend large amounts of public money on a "communications strategy", the main point of which, as Labour councillors freely admit, is to sell the the Council’s policies to the public rather than help the public get its message across to the Council. And even when Labour’s "focus groups" and "Quality Roadshows" have given Labour councillors a glimpse of what the public wants, they simply ignore the results. For example, the Council’s own consultation exercises show that the Cambridge public’s number one concern is traffic, but Labour has massively reduced Council spending on traffic and transport and refuses even to contemplate putting money into public transport. Even on relatively simple matters, such as the state of public lavatories, Labour’s approach is to consult and do nothing.

The Liberal Democrat approach is to consult the public on what needs to be done and to respond in practical ways to what the public says.

Public Participation at Council Meetings Planning applications touch most people at some time. The only way people affected by planning applications, either as neighbours or as applicants, can influence the Council's decisions is by lobbying councillors and officers. This is not satisfactory, especially when there are late changes in plans. It is also unfair that large developers often put on elaborate and expensive presentations for Planning Committee members when objectors often have no chance to put their side of the story. We support giving people affected by planning applications a chance to put their views directly to the Planning Committee. Many other councils (eg Richmond, Newbury and Sutton) have adopted this system with great success.

The City Council also hands out hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in grants to local organisations and voluntary bodies. The system is unfair and excessively secretive. We want to see a much more open way of making decisions on grants. Before the Conservatives regained power, the County Council had a much better system for its social services local panel grants. All groups had a right to present their case in public before the committee. That way, fears of favouritism are reduced and groups can see for themselves how the Council arrives at its decisions.

Another way in which the Council can become more open is to allow members of the public to question councillors at Council meetings. Many Councils, especially those under Liberal Democrat control, now hold public question times at full Council meetings. Question times can also be held at council committee meetings.

Responsiveness to public opinion Many of the Council's worst recent mistakes could have been avoided if the Council had bothered to find out more about public opinion before it embarked on the scheme. We will ensure that all departments of the Council comply with the highest standards of public consultation.

Consultation can extend beyond covering specific projects to bigger decisions that the Council has to take. The London Borough of Richmond, for example, has developed a sophisticated system, including opinion polling and leaflets showing costed options, of consulting the whole population of the Borough on overall levels of spending and taxation. The next logical step of local referendums is also one we support.

Neighbourhood consultation We support more local consultation on matters such as programmes of environmental improvements, local parks and leisure facilities and local planning matters. There is also a case for establishing formal parish councils in areas of the city with strong local identities, including Trumpington, Cherry Hinton, Newnham, Romsey and Chesterton. We also want ward councillors to be more directly responsible for the council services delivered in their area. We want eventually to see a system in which local people have a direct say in the services delivered to them.

Labour’s "Neighbourhood Community Plan" has made some progress in the right direction, but the approach of throwing one-off sums of £200,000 at a few (Labour-voting) wards, financed by cuts across the city, is flawed. First, it offers no say in day-to-day services. Secondly, because it is a one-off, once the money is spent, consultation stops. Thirdly, there are no clear accountability structures. Labour’s main aim has been to redistribute council spending towards its "own" areas, not to decentralise decision-making. We will create a structure in which all citizens have an equal chance to participate, not just a jamboree for the chosen few.

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