[cma-l] White Paper: How digital engagement can save councils money

[CMA-L]

Dear colleagues

This White Paper from The Democratic Society on how democratic
engagement can help local government save money in a time of cuts
might be useful when applying for funding from your local authority.

Executive Summary:

This is a time of fiscal pressure and service cuts. Councils are
restructuring services and looking to cut back on non-essential areas
of spending. Is democratic engagement one of those areas?

Aside from the moral argument for democratic engagement, there is
evidence that investment in strong democratic participation is
important if reformed local government approaches are to result in
more efficient spending and better-targeted services.

The evidence of self-directed support and personalised budgets shows
that involving citizens and users in service provision can produce
better-tailored services that operate at lower overall cost.

Where councils need to cut expenditure, high-quality democratic
engagement in the budget setting process can provide them with better
information, while increasing participants’ opinion of the council.

In countries with a tradition of more participatory democracy, higher
levels of participatory democracy correlate with more efficient
services and greater willingness to pay tax.

Creating a single architecture for public consultation and engagement
can also reduce the cost of duplication in consultation exercises.

If they can create an attractive offer on democratic engagement,
councils should be able to realise benefits, because there is a large
untapped market of people who want to get engaged in their local area,
as well as broader reach and range for online democratic engagement
tools.

http://www.demsoc.org/static/Financial-Case-white-paper.pdf

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