Consultation & Representation in Haringey

These comments have been moved from the Big Savings thread:

Ruth 13 hours ago

As for consultn. re 5 a side in Finsbury Park.... It wont change my life to be honest, could live without that. They have already decided its to be 5 a side havent they? Consultation often means that the public are presented with a ready made agenda or choices, they are not involved right from the beginning to air their ideas and ideals and to help SET the agenda. Consultation is often a PR job and seems like democracy but its often just lip service. and its not because I know nothing about PR cus I have done some of this myself.

Will Hoyle 3 hours ago

Well looks like we haven't got any further....in fact we should be paying our councillors more and we need more consultation apparently....so the Haringey deficit just got that much bigger.........!

Chris Setz 2 hours ago

Completely agree regarding the consultn. re 5 a side in Finsbury Park. I had several ideas and contacted the council when I saw their website announcement (with no contact details or dates!) as I wanted to be in the loop.

Instead of the chance to contribute ideas at the 'drawing board' stage, the 'consultation' turns out to be the chance to comment on the detailed plans drawn up by a team of paid professionals across the relevant disciplines. I think it's important for sports spaces to accommodate spectators so that some events can occasionally be ticketed and wanted my son to be able to play Futsal (the most popular form of 5-a-side) there. The winning countries say that not playing Futsal is the reason England don't win World Cups - Futsal really skills up young players of both sexes in a stylish way...

I also wanted them to provide a way for the players themselves to contribute ideas and my son for one is too young (14) to find it on the council website and follow the procedure - it needs to be on Facebook.

To absorb my point of view now they'd significantly change the plans (including reducing the number of people who could play at any one time) and that would waste a lot of the money already spent. There would need to be huge reasons to justify that and 'comments' don't cut it. So people like me simply won't bother as it's too late and I don't want them to waste. There was no way to input earlier.

Although I have my own ideas there are others (maybe with opposite views) who deserve an equal audience, but none of us will get anywhere - the 'consultation' was started at way too advanced a stage to permit those sorts of changes so is it really a consultation or more of a 'catch us if you can'?

Ruth 1 hour ago

Its not consultation we want which implies the idea is already there and people are just asked what they think about it.

Real participatory democracy is the ideal and that doesnt need to cost much money especially in this day and age of social networking sites, twitter and the like. Its an outdated mode of communication to distribute glossy 'newsletters' and plans telling folks what is going to happen (and often dont get seen or read) but they can have their say, if you can manage to get through.

People, esp younger people, can mobilise and communicate and get something organised and done without producing much at all. And other people in the community have other ways of airing their views, their own forums such as the coffee shops, the sports clubs on Green lanes etc.

I would like to 'cut' the term consultation, replace it with participatory democrarcy at grassroots level, which would involve proper community groups (including online ones like this) with plenty of feedback loops all round.

Ok, I am idealistic. But I betcha that this way would be cheaper that outmoded PR depts and glossy mags and expensive consultation exercises.

Coventry council a few years back were going to regenerate the area I grew up in and where my mum, god bless her soul, still lived. They sent nice things to everyone, with lots of colourful plans and outlines and the benefits of each and people were asked to vote for which one they wanted. There were three choices- none of these came from the people themselves and hidden away in there under the term 'street alignment' was the fact that they were gonna knock down houses. But the demolition word not mentioned once.

Only when few canny folk asked and asked a lot, what street realignment meant, did they come clean on the demolition and my mums house was on the list. So much for consultation. the people fought back and the houses were saved but a lot of money had been spent by the council and it all had to be rethought whereas if they had just ASKED the residents in the first place, got to know them a bit even (god forbid) then all of that would have been avoided.

The residents called their own meetings in the local club - they managed to show themselves as articulate, organised and reasonable yet passionate about where they lived. This shocked the council. They could have easily have found out earlier.

Chris Setz 2 minutes ago

When it gets serious, important and complicated, do any of us have much to say? People don't seem to want to accept that the Council is us - we vote, we pay, we obey. The local government officers are in our employ - they are there to serve us. The local councillors are there to channel our thoughts, ideas and suggestions. Some of them are bad at it, buts that's true of any group of us too. Some are corrupt, some geniuses etc etc.

The council does try to listen but so many people seem to snort at them (ever filled in any of the surveys the council provide? What do you think of them?).

I think that is the biggest elephant in the room. What we post here will be ignored, as it arguably should be (unless Hugh agrees to represent our views!) . Huge numbers of us do not vote, do not attend meetings, do not read council-related leaflets, newspapers, etc - it must drive the Council crazy! Whatever they do, most ignore and the rest seem to think badly of them.

I remember when teachers were held in almost as low esteem - it's better now, but they still haven't recovered and you could say that the state of our education system is directly related to the status we give our educators. The same is probably true of our social workers.

In other words, we get the council we deserve. The real way to get involved is to get involved! To support the Council by working within their system, and to help change it if needed, but people don't want to - they seem to want to complain about apparent mistakes and say 'not in my back yard'. With power comes responsibility and it's like those losers on the X-Factor-type TV shows - they don't seem to connect with the reality that getting what you want the community to provide usually involves working for it yourself and positively accepting the will of the community if you don't.

If we were to ask people to support the party of their choice so that they got the changes to the council they wail are needed, they simply wouldn't bother - only a third of us voted locally last time. Worse, there seems to be a feeling that small local initiatives are best done in spite of the council, that the council cannot be counted upon to act in the interests of the borough - how did that happen?

So for goodness sake lets' not provide a forum here for people to sound off about changes to such a vital service, changes that, if ill-considered, can do lasting harm to the innocent. Lets use the professionals we have and the channels that exist to talk directly about it to them if we really care enough.

Just my tuppence worth - I'm probably badly wrong!