Are you being served?

It isn’t just the numbers engaging with Council webcasts (see next story) that is exciting Councillors interest.

A meeting next week is set to agonise about how to get more engagement by residents both in respect of their local community as well as on a citywide issues.

There is a cause for concern.

York Council engagement slide

Communication levels by individual Councillors seem to have gone backwards in recent years. Only the occasional political diatribe now finds its way through many letterboxes

Residents in many wards has come to expect annual surveys on local public service standards. A newsletter reporting back on progress would be delivered to homes every few months while campaigns and petitions, for local improvements, were regular events. Several web sites were set up (Facebook, Twitter, “blogs” etc) but few are updated regularly these days .

Many of these initiatives have faded in recent years. Ineffective leadership and a lack of drive seems to be the main problem.

Ward committees were set up to try to provide a better local engagement opportunity. Attendance at these (should be) quarterly meetings has never been high. This may be partly because there has been little “reporting back” on residents concerns.

Incredibly as we approach the end of the financial year, some wards have yet to allocate, much less spend, their delegated budgets. According to the list of minutes published on the Councils web site, some apparently haven’t even met for nearly two years.

Very few Councillors are routinely active on social media, although the propensity for personal abuse on some channels, may be a deterrent. There is really, though, no reason why they should not contribute each week to a “ward news” type site. Indeed the time may have come for a trial of a monthly “podcast” for each neighbourhood.

Those areas that do not have a Parish council or active Residents Association do seem to miss out.

The report on engagement to next weeks meeting is disappointing. It points to the “My Castle Gateway” consultation as a paradigm. In reality that was a ponderous exercise which – lacking a critical financial appraisal – arguably produced the wrong outcome.

A similar approach is threatened for the debate on the future of the City Centre. It would be a slow and costly process which would be likely to engage only a particular section of the local community; sometimes referred to as the “provincial, academic, socialist elite” (PASE) .

We need less hand wringing for the York Council, less navel gazing and more action.

If people see change and improvement being implemented then they may respond.

No Councillor R E Mote in York

City of York Councillors will have to continue to attend meetings in person as plans for tele conferencing have been shelved for the time being at least. Central government rules require members to be physically present at meetings if they are to exercise their vote.

It is possible that teleconferencing may be introduced for regional and national meetings.

The decision is contained in a report published yesterday which revealed that there were 63,949 “views” of webcast Council meetings in the City during the last year. That was up 28% on the previous period and includes “live” views and those later watching “on demand”.

The largest number of views was for a controversial audit meeting held on 18th September 2019 which attracted 2849.

On the other hand the numbers viewing some other meetings have been as low as 63. The budget Council meeting last week attracted only 424 viewers.

It is unclear what proportion of York residents are regular viewers. Some at least may be participants, their families and friends.

There was some scepticism when webcasting was first introduced about the value for money of the service. However, it is now regarded as a useful decision making record and is a valuable resource  for researchers.

A similar service has been introduced by several other Councils.