Agenda item

The Board received a presentation from the Senior Corporate Policy and Performance Officer which highlighted the work that had been carried out in both Local Democracy Week and Democracy Year 2010/11, and which had formed a part of the recommendations put forward by the Community Involvement in Local Democracy Task Group in May 2010.

The Senior Corporate Policy and Performance Officer informed Members that Local Democracy Week had been timed to lead into the local election and had brought together colleagues from different departments within the Council and external partners, with a particular focus on young people through schools and youth centres.  The activities had been designed to cover different areas of the District, had produced a programme that could be repeated in the future, developed relationships with community and provided ongoing engagement with democracy.  The following areas were covered in detail within the presentation:

• A market stall in Bromsgrove Town Centre manned by the Elections Team.
• Work at Rubery Youth Centre including meeting with the Youth Management Team and the design of a Decision Makers Questionnaire.
• Visit to Haybridge High School to deliver a lesson on women in democracy, which was linked to International Woman’s Day.  A group of students attended the Council’s celebration of this event which was held in the Spadesbourne Suite.
• Several local schools took part in Community Clean-ups.
• Sessions with young people took place at Woodrush High School and Youth Centre which explored what democracy meant to the young people.
• Information was provided to students and staff on voting and elections, with a “mock” polling station. at NEW College at the Bromsgrove and Reddtich campuses.
• Work with the Youth Management Team at the Trunk which discussed the qualities of a good representative and issues relevant to young people.

The Senior Corporate Policy and Performance Officer also informed Members that as a result of the success of the activities, the following items were planned for the future:

• Web pages for young people would be developed.
• The X-press Democracy Magazine would be updated.
• Engagement with Young People was being reviewed in partnership with the Children and Young People Theme Group and 2 mini conferences were proposed.
• The possibility of inviting representatives of the Worcestershire Youth Cabinet in to meet Councillors.

The Board asked what, if any, the future plans were for this type of work to be carried out in future years.  The Head of Legal, Equalities and Democratic Services informed Members that an evaluation of the activities would be carried out and those which had been most successful and had the most benefit to the Council, would be built upon for future years, and it was anticipated that similar exercises, wherever possible, would be carried out in 2011/12 and 2012/13.  Material had been provided to some schools to enable them to include some of the areas covered within their own Citizenship lessons and information would also be made available on the website in due course.

The Chairman thanked the Senior Corporate Policy and Performance Officer for providing a very informative presentation.