Agenda item

Alison Swaddle asked the Executive Member for Resident Services, Communications and Emissions the following question:

 

Question

Professor Paul Chatterton of the University of Leeds and a leading national expert on climate change, has already praised our local Climate Emergency Action Plan as an example of best practise nationally, and has said that we are on the right track with our focus areas and actions. 

 

What, therefore is the point of engaging a vast number of our residents in running a wide reaching Citizen’s Assembly in Wokingham Borough? 

 

Surely both the evidence presented and therefore the recommendations received will be similar or identical to those already run by other local authorities nationally and, most notably by the Government via Climate Assembly UK?

Minutes:

 

Professor Paul Chatterton of the University of Leeds and a leading national expert on climate change, has already praised our local Climate Emergency Action Plan as an example of best practise nationally, and has said that we are on the right track with our focus areas and actions. 

 

What, therefore, is the point of engaging a vast number of our residents in running a wide-reaching Citizen’s Assembly in Wokingham Borough? 

 

Surely both the evidence presented and therefore the recommendations received will be similar or identical to those already run by other local authorities nationally and, most notably by the Government via Climate Assembly UK?

 

Answer

The Council is aware of the scale of the challenge that becoming net-zero carbon will bring to all of us and acknowledge that this will not be achieved without the active involvement of the community. Wokingham Borough Council believes our residents have a great insight into the challenges presented by the climate emergency, and that Local Deliberative Processes, such as Citizens’ Assemblies, can empower people and communities to make important decisions in a way that is fair and deeply democratic. 

 

Wokingham Borough Council plans to run a programme of Local Deliberative Process meetings bringing together residents, local businesses, schoolchildren, environmental and social charities and other stakeholders to help investigate, discuss and make recommendations on some of the challenges we face.

 

The programme will comprise a series of small meetings focusing on specific topics that will help to find solutions that will reduce the Borough`s carbon footprint. Many of these topics may be Borough-specific or new to the Borough or may involve seeking solutions to challenges already identified, such as:

 

“How the Council can communicate issues around consumption emissions? And, what measures can be introduced aimed at increasing awareness of these emissions amongst residents?”

 

Or “What should Wokingham Borough Council’s 2030 net-zero carbon vision be and what life in Wokingham Borough would look like? How life in the Borough will be different in terms of our homes, travel, work, leisure time and waste and the way we source food, goods and services?”

 

The Local Deliberative Processes represent an exciting opportunity to engage with our communities and plans will commence in the New Year.

 

Supplementary Question

You have mentioned Local Deliberative Processes a few times in your answer, is this the same or different to a Citizens’ Assembly?

 

Supplementary Answer

On Saturday morning, as part of the Reading Climate Festival, I attended a presentation by Extinction Rebellion specifically on Citizens’ Assemblies, what they are and what they mean.

 

As part of that presentation I learned that Citizens’ Assemblies are just one of many different types of Local Deliberative Processes that can be used to help educate and take action on an important or urgent topic. The Citizens’ Assembly, so I learned, is a fantastic tool for national Governments to make decisions on big, controversial or multi-faceted issues. One was used in Ireland to help decide on the topics of Gay Marriage and also Abortion. Recently, the Climate Assembly UK was used to help educate the Government on the Climate Emergency Action Plan which it launched earlier this week. Having taken the time to learn about the subject from experts, I have learned that the term Citizens’ Assembly is not a catch-all. It is one of the Local Deliberative Processes that are available to us.

 

So, while it is easy to jump on a bandwagon and blindly call for a Citizens’ Assembly, the simple truth is that other methods of Local Deliberative Processes may be significantly more beneficial for the needs of our community and for our Climate Emergency Action Plan. In fact, during the presentation one of the speakers specifically said about Climate Emergency Citizens’ Assemblies “We are only asking for one, a national one. Locally, we need a different deliberative process.”

 

I am committed to doing the best for our residents and for our community, so we are keeping an open mind and assessing all of the options available to us. Options such as an Advisory Board or Advisory Summit, a Citizens’ Panel or Citizens’ Jury, as well as a more specific repeat of the Crowdsourcing of Ideas Process that we have already run. All of these potential Local Deliberative Processes are advocated by an organisation called Involve, who are experts in organising these exact types of Local Deliberative Processes.

 

Whichever route we go down, we are committed to it being run independently of the Council, of party politics and of activism. It will be representative of our community, including our secondary school children and will also make recommendations, having listened to evidence from informed experts.