Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Area Assemblies. Some thoughts.
Well, here is the Council's view of the Area Assembly. I have to confess that I have never attended one (nor will this time due to previous engagement) but mainly because in all honesty I had never heard of it until the beginning of this year through a local resident's group and I have lived in the area 10 years.
From the Council website:
"Haringey's Assemblies are the place for you and other local residents to contribute ideas on how we can improve the area where you live. They are meetings where you can talk directly with councillors.
Where are Assemblies held?
Assemblies are held in local community buildings - such as schools, libraries and church halls. They are informal, so you do not need to read lengthy reports before coming along or know how local government works.
How do Assemblies work?
Discussions take place on the issues you think are important, led either by council officers or community groups. Regular topics include refuse collection, traffic, public transport, green spaces, schools, regeneration, parking - all the topics that interest local people. We often set up discussion groups within meetings so that everyone gets an opportunity to talk.
There is also a 'soapbox' at the end of each meeting for you and other residents to raise issues that are of burning importance* (my italics) in your area."
(*There is not, I trust, a hint of sarcasm in this phrase)
Am I the only one who was unaware of its presence? Have you ever seen an advert for one? Given that it takes place in 3 days time, have you seen a poster anywhere obvious for it?
"The Council has also established a number of local structures and opportunities for effective (my italics)community engagement" said the letter which turned down this site's bid for funding.
Does the Area Assembly count as an effective structure and opportunity for the community to engage?
Can you name the others implied by the phrase 'a number'?
From the Council website:
"Haringey's Assemblies are the place for you and other local residents to contribute ideas on how we can improve the area where you live. They are meetings where you can talk directly with councillors.
Where are Assemblies held?
Assemblies are held in local community buildings - such as schools, libraries and church halls. They are informal, so you do not need to read lengthy reports before coming along or know how local government works.
How do Assemblies work?
Discussions take place on the issues you think are important, led either by council officers or community groups. Regular topics include refuse collection, traffic, public transport, green spaces, schools, regeneration, parking - all the topics that interest local people. We often set up discussion groups within meetings so that everyone gets an opportunity to talk.
There is also a 'soapbox' at the end of each meeting for you and other residents to raise issues that are of burning importance* (my italics) in your area."
(*There is not, I trust, a hint of sarcasm in this phrase)
Am I the only one who was unaware of its presence? Have you ever seen an advert for one? Given that it takes place in 3 days time, have you seen a poster anywhere obvious for it?
"The Council has also established a number of local structures and opportunities for effective (my italics)community engagement" said the letter which turned down this site's bid for funding.
Does the Area Assembly count as an effective structure and opportunity for the community to engage?
Can you name the others implied by the phrase 'a number'?
Tags for Forum Posts: area assembly, area forum, community engagement, local democracy
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Liz on
-
Information about the next one:
http://www.harringayonline.com/events/event/show?id=844301:Event:42558
-
Permalink Reply by Eddie Finnegan on
-
Not sure I can answer all your questions about the AA, Liz.
Briefly each of the borough's 7 areas has a quarterly assembly. St Ann's & Harringay hold theirs every three months in a local church or school hall, alternating over the year between wards: e.g. St John's church hall (Wightman/Frobisher); Chestnut Primary sch (St Ann's rd); Sth Harringay jnr sch (Mattison rd); Salvation Army hall (Terront rd); ... then repeat. So far I'm not aware that either the vicar of St Paul's or the imam at the Mosque has been approached/volunteered.
Advertising? Sparse, I would say. They don't exactly go out to the highways and byways to compel us to come in. Normally a half page ad in 'Haringey People' gives the dates and venues for the forthcoming Area Assemblies for each of the seven areas. But this month's issue, p.30, gives only the skimpiest info, with no dates or venues for the June meetings.
A Noticeboard (such as the one on Umfreville Rd at the end of Harringay Passage) has a corner for Area Assembly news - but it's not kept up to date.
If you're on the mailing list, you get a quarterly newsletter (a foldover A4 or A5 leaflet) with date, venue and agenda for the next meeting - usually a couple of weeks in advance. 'Making the Difference' bid info is usually mailed out in Feb, with a deadline for late March.
Catch-22! How do you get on the mailing list? You attend an Area Assembly and fill in your details. How do you attend an AA if you know neither the time nor the place? Ah, that would be telling!
The Haringey People May issue ad does at least give a phone number and email address for info. No, I've seen no posters, no ads in the local "free press" or any other obvious spot.
Worth attending? Yes, I'd say definitely. Effective engagement??? Depends on the councillor and the extent of the grilling. Boring? sometimes.
Like churchgoing - I feel if I don't attend occasionally, I've lost my right to criticise. So I go along to most of them.
Time: 7.30 - 9.30 main meeting, but get there by 7.00 if you want a one-to-one with council or Neighbourhood Management officials, Streetscene etc. This time, voting on shortlisted Making the Difference bids starts at 7.00.
There's an interval for light refreshments.
Meeting usually engagingly chaired by Cllr Gina Adamou - assisted and minuted by Dasos Maliotis, Neighbourhood Manager. Gina's skirmishes with Mario in full spate are usually a feature. All six councillors usually attend, including Karen and Carolyn of Lib Dems.
Over past year or so, agendas determined by main concerns expressed from the floor at (as far as I recall) the Spring meeting of 2007(or was it 2006?) over in St Anns. So the agendas at least have the trappings of democracy, or at least 'vox populi'. e.g the question of HMOs was beginning to make itself felt. Ian's presentation from the LCSP was the main feature of a later assembly - leading to setting up of action group or panel of 'cabinet members' etc on the subject.
This Tuesday's agenda has: SFT update (probably from Glyn); Community Consultation with Cllr Lorna Reith (Deputy Council Leader); Making the Difference projects; and Items for Future Assemblies - I think that last should be listing concerns from the floor.
There's the usual slot for 'Cabinet Members' Question Time' - ie questions to Brian Haley, Nilgun Canver and Bob Harris (all, curiously, ward councillors for St Ann's but expected to rise above the parochial level and answer to their cabinet portfolios.
Finally you can have 3 minutes Soap Box time by pre-booking with Dasos or Gina. Which is just what I did at the last Assembly mtg at St John's Church hall - only to find that the Soap Box had fallen off the end of the agenda for lack of time so I'm still waiting to have my say.
Are AA meetings effective? Sometimes. An efficient use of time? Less so
-
-
Thank you for this info. I will attend the next one for sure. (AA is area assembly not alcoholics anonymous, I trust :) )
I hope others reading this will try and get along there, as it really is the only real time opportunity that I know of to speak to all local councillors in a public forum. Let's hope some honesty will be shown this year in the MTD voting as I believe there was some attempt at 'rigging' last year.
See you in September.
-
Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
-
Hi Liz,
I've attended a few. The first one I attended (and others subsequently) was billed as "you talk, we listen". Because this is possibly an invitation to airing criticism (if it were taken seriously) measures were taken so as to make it much more "we talk, you listen".
A tactic I've seen deployed in more than one AA meeting is to get a municipal employee to give a talk about his job and to drone on about how important, challenging and satisfying it is. These discourses might be fascinating to other local authority officials. These performances can be insulting to ratepayers who turn up expecting something other than a monotonous municipal monologue.
The chances are it has little to do with the real lives and sometimes shows how out of touch the Council is with the problems of ordinary people. The benefit (from the municipal point-of-view) is that they consume a lot of the allocated time and reduce time available for questions and possible complaint. I suggest that if you sense a filibuster, object!
I recommend that you go along: in principle these meetings are a good idea and there is the possibility that the Council will learn and improve. It is possible that in time they could develop into something useful. But at present, don't necessarily expect answers that have meaningful content.
IMHO the MTDF is by and large an inefficient and sometimes a wasteful way of spending our money. It is mainly intended as a sop, making you feel involved and to obfuscate the far bigger sums of our money that the Council wastes in the areas over which it has sole responsibility.
-
-
One thing that is becoming clear from what is being said here (to me at least) is how much the Council seeks to control and direct those exercises in community engagement that they do endorse. It also sounds like they are not that keen on reminding people about these meetings through the obvious channels like the local press. What about some posters up in libraries, doctors surgeries, children's centres? Or are they worried that too many people might show up?! And why not put a form in the Haringey people that people can send in to get on the mailing list, or something on the website like most modern organisations do? (All ideas are free to take away and use should a council official be looking for ways to improve communication)
I would have been v interested to hear Lorna Reith's stuff on Community Consultation which judging by various comments on this forum is considered an absolute joke (have you ever tried to fill one of their online consultations in? For a council so committed to communicating with the diverse members of their community, they are shockingly difficult and (tedious) to do, certainly not accessible). Perhaps, you could take some notes for me Eddie, as I'm not sure the 'newsletter' will give me all the info I require. I understand that Lorna is very highly regarded and may actually deliver on her brief.
I will ensure I do not foolishly buy tickets for a concert in september and do my best to attend.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
