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The listening council with its ears closed to votersNOT listening was a charge often levelled at the Labour councillors who once governed the council. The story goes: they didn’t listen over housing; they didn’t listen over parking – and when they stopped listening on nearly everything else, they were booted out of the Town Hall.
The Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition seemed to have been well-versed in this fable when it came to power, claiming to be a “listening council”. But as the protesters who gathered at the Town Hall last night have found to their dismay (see pages 1 and 2), there is a difference between listening and hearing, and just listening for the sake of appearances.
The administrative style of the “listening” Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition is now familiar to us all.
Step one: devise a plan, say, open a city academy or sell off some council homes.
Step two: ask people what they think, send out questionnaires and organise a few meetings.
Step three: stick with the plan regardless of what people tell you – even if they have uncovered some glaring problems.
Is that too cynical a view of the major consultations undertaken since the coalition formed? Well, that’s certainly the way it looks to those who have taken part in the meetings and questionnaires. Their efforts, made in good faith, have had little or no effect on any aspect of council policy. Instead there has been a “we-know-best” attitude that is bound to alienate voters.
Take the decision last night to hand University College London the keys to the new school in Adelaide Road. There are serious and substantial arguments that the school shouldn’t have been in Swiss Cottage at all; the case for a new secondary in the south of the borough has been rehearsed time and again for 30 years. Furthermore, the manner in which UCL have taken control of the scheme is really worthy of more scrutiny. But despite challenging, constructive and convincing feedback at the consultation meetings, the council cabinet has hardly moved an inch, sticking doggedly to its original plan.
On Monday, a housing consultation is due to come to an end.
While the new school debate has been in the spotlight at the Town Hall, housing chiefs have quietly got on with their plans to sell off homes and do deals with housing associations to raise cash for repairs (see page 3). Maybe if the consultation had been all bells and whistles, the wrong answer would have come back. When Labour held a long-running debate about possible stock transfer three years ago, they allowed enough oxygen for tenants to have a proper say over the running of their homes. Tenants voted against the transfer and privatisation plans were beaten off.
Sadly, the lesson the coalition learned from that episode was that listening to the people is problematic because you sometimes hear an answer you don’t want.
Tenants couldn’t have made it more clear over the past 15 years that they are opposed to sell-offs and sell-outs. Now, it appears, the council has made a great charade of listening – but it clearly hasn’t heard a word.
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