Weeknotes S4 Eps 2 Democracy, Inspiration and Disappointment

Firstly, apologies. Tardy work I admit, and a little bit (putting it mildly) of a gap between episodes.

Still, I will endeavour to do better and try and get reflection time in, but like so many others in the public sector, my time in the last few months has been squeezed down to breaking point. I can change this though, so no moans there….

Crossing the fortnight really but three things influencing my thoughts from the last 10 days.

One: Elections

No doubt those reading this will have been aware of the mammoth local elections this week, my biggest worry (I’ll come back to this) is what about those who aren’t likely to read this and those who didn't get involved in last weeks local democracy….

Firstly massive shout to my colleagues Andy and Vicky (and everyone else) in the elections team in my two councils. It was the most challenging elections yet with limited numbers of volunteers due to COVID, four separate ballots in Cambridge and SIX!!!!! (two bye elections and a couple of Neighbourhood Plan referendums) in South Cambs.

It never ceases to amaze me how professional and efficient election teams run in order to maintain a legitimate election process with integrity and probity. I worked the City verification count on Thursday night (separating ballots from the 4 County, City, Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) and Mayoral) and ensuring they tallied with what was collected at polling stations). This was to ensure everything was ready to go for the count taking place on Friday and Saturday.

Definitely the longest verification I've been part of as we started at 10pm and I was only just finalising my tables work at 8am!!! Have a thought for the poor election managers and returning officers who had to continue into the count that day (and the next) while I dragged myself home to bed.

My quick reflections on this (too much t go into an probably deserves a whole blog) were;

I have real concerns about how this will work for our younger generations going forward in the next 5 yrs and beyond, not to mention those from diverse backgrounds who are less likely to engage in local democracy through lack of understanding about process and structures (let alone language and cultural barriers). The process is still not inclusive to young people who engage with political content almost entirely through digital and there is much work to do to bring a proportionate vice together from our communities. I feel incredibly strongly about Voter ID and posted thoughts here.

Two: Inspiration

Woke up this morning feeling pretty low and drained from the constant battle for progressing positive change, and a recent raft of other things which should be seemingly simple to improve upon, which just continue to go round on the hamster wheel of indecision, and the questionable inability of some to consider options outside existing paradigms. Also a little disappointment which I’ll touch on in a minute.

However, the sometimes relentlessly brutal world of twitter brought me one of the golden nuggets of mind and soul boost which it is so great for. Post by Imandeep Kaur below with a smorgasbord of great positivity and people doing great change and making progress really boosted me to get up and work harder… so tanks for that Immy. That’s why its so important for everyone to share their positive stuff too as there is always a common theme to be found in even diverse frames of refence…

Three: Disappointment

Finally a bit of disappointing news. We put in a bid for the Government pathfinder on local plans and digital, see here. For those who know me, know this is something I'm especially passionate about not just from a process improvement and bringing things into 2021, but for the vast opportunities that using digital to enhance how we plan and deliver places in a more joined up and effective way in orders to address some of the complex 21st century challenges we face.

Not to mention the power that opening up the murky world of planning and local government to diverse perspectives and a wider demography which could be enabled by embedding digital principles could achieve.

However we had notice back that we were unsuccessful in our bid. I was gutted about this really because as a team have worked really hard over the last 18 months to actually have a digital approach to plan making and bringing forward a much more participatory approach to how we demystify planning through 21st century approaches including digital, design and systems practice.

I had (foolishly) though we were in a good position, as we are already deeply embedded in digitising our plan making process (see below threads from previous blogs)including community participation and policy's as data and are working in HTML. But as the 3rd strand of the bid (which we entered for) was very loose in terms of specifying what they were looking for, there may have been limited understanding in what they felt we are trying to achieve and some cross purpose in the understanding of what the art of the possible might be… Never-mind, we will absolutely continue on our digital journey anyway (and after my initial apathy it kind of galvanised me to push harder and accelerate this further, so silver linings etc. etc….)

Anyway, feels good to get back into the writing and reflecting mode and now looking forward to Friday PM release of breath.

Have wonderful weekends all :-)