tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48911458070157164092026-03-20T23:58:55.868+00:00Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.comBlogger101125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-83512421090299005622017-02-09T18:42:00.001+00:002017-02-09T18:52:08.462+00:00

So, this is the last post of the localopolis blog.  I'm writing it just before the 2017 version of the notwestminster event.  I’ve got a new project to get started and so now seems to be the right time to conclude.  Also, to be fair, I did say I would write 101 posts and that is just what I have done (and it only took me…. seven years!).  I'm still writing over at local

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-8001866961998926432017-02-03T16:24:00.001+00:002017-02-03T16:24:07.811+00:00

Constitution of Athens, British Museum Credit Ok, so only one more of the 101 localopolis posts to go after this. As this is 100 I thought it would be cool to link back to my first in April 2010 (!!).  In that post I suggested that the messy complexities of local accountabilities could be sorted if only we had a single local constitution for the area.  This would cover the

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-25227692706910693502017-01-13T15:57:00.003+00:002017-01-13T15:57:46.785+00:00

Juror #8:  "It’s not so easy for me to raise my hand and agree a new residents parking scheme for the town without talking about it first" I've touched on the idea of citizens juries before but never dedicated a post to it.  Of course it's something that has been widely discussed and tested - it's a type of participatory initiative that incorporates some of the principles that we

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-70903121816674548582017-01-06T07:59:00.003+00:002017-01-06T13:32:50.178+00:00

[I said when I started this blog that I would share 101 ideas.  I'm now getting near the end so I'm having a final push.  I found this in my drafts and thought it was worth sharing - so here it is.] Turns out that the Community Chest on the Monopoly board relates to an actual thing.  An actual thing that has been around for a while in the United States where community chest

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-89524297627575970362016-12-21T12:02:00.000+00:002017-01-05T22:18:40.608+00:00

This is something I picked up at the recent Nesta Digital Democracy Day (I wrote about the day here).  The idea was one of many included in a rich presentation from super cool Taiwan ‘Digital’ Minister without Portfolio, Audrey Tang. Upon taking office earlier this year Audrey set up a question and answer page for public and media enquiries on Wiselike (although I'm sure other

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-48977007012233518442016-12-02T12:25:00.000+00:002016-12-02T12:25:08.856+00:00

This is the write up from my Purposeful Public Engagement Workshop at the 2016 Centre for Public Scrutiny Annual Conference: ‘Democracy, governance and the truth’. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the event as a whole – some excellent speakers and an opportunity to take stock of the rapidly changing environment we are all working in whether in terms of devolution, democratic renewal or the

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-89329135323398775302016-10-20T12:05:00.000+01:002016-10-20T12:05:32.407+01:00

photo credit Here are some more great ideas that I have picked up from the National Assembly for Wales.  Thanks to the fantastic Kevin Davies for sharing these in what was a sort of unofficial fringe event we had just before GovCampCymru (by the way, big thanks to all at Satori Lab who made govcampcymru possible and to all the sponsors and supporters and to Ben and Lou from Delib who

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-78066970393444933712016-09-28T14:01:00.000+01:002016-09-28T14:52:13.019+01:00

Scrutiny committees at the national and the local level depend on a wide range of people when gathering evidence.  Most of the time people contribute for free but should we do more to support, recognise and reward them?  This was a question asked by Kevin Davies for The Welsh Assembly Outreach Team before and after Govcampcymru.  Having reflected on Kevin's ideas as well as some

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-7881750286058856482016-09-16T13:35:00.002+01:002016-09-16T13:36:38.701+01:00

Photo credit OK, so this is the pitch I am thinking about for govcampcymru. It's taking place on the 24 September in Cardiff. What might government and democracy in Wales look like if we designed around what people need as citizens rather than what they need as service users? There is a big reform agenda around local government in Wales at the moment.  One map has been scrapped and we

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-30277977512747032132016-07-01T15:23:00.000+01:002016-07-01T15:23:08.987+01:00

Photo credit The notwestminster work we have been doing is seriously great and the folks involved have achieved a lot.  There have been two brilliant events, many ideas generated and lots of new connections made.  From the stuff done so far we have settled on a set of local democracy design challenges to work on - a list of things we want to change. While this is all good, the next

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-70746918568004217642016-05-24T13:06:00.004+01:002016-09-20T15:20:39.162+01:00

Photo credit I'm developing something for our Public Services Board (local strategic partnership) that will help them set up working groups to address priorities that they have identified.  I'm sharing this partly in search of feedback and partly as it may have applications elsewhere. Essentially this will be a template to help them work through proposals and to feel confident that they

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-72991437078637573292016-05-12T10:06:00.001+01:002016-07-12T14:27:46.227+01:00

Photo Credit  Scaling questions ask people to assess how close they are to a self-identified preferred future using a zero-to-ten scale.  The technique is used in solution focused brief therapy but I am suggesting that it can be adapted for the process of producing a well-being assessment.  The purpose of this post is to set out how. Well-being Assessments in Wales One of

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-37203835536145402842016-03-28T12:12:00.000+01:002016-05-10T01:07:29.052+01:00

Last week we had a good old fashioned tweetchat about how scrutiny teams can make best use of twitter.  We used the #scrutinytweets hashtag if you want to check it out. It was initially planned as an exchange between the Swansea and Birmingham teams but others joined in - all in all it was a lively and thoroughly enjoyable hour so thanks everyone who chipped in, hope you found it useful

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-26088704441440420452016-02-12T15:14:00.001+00:002016-02-12T15:26:53.640+00:00

Councils facing increasing difficult budget decisions are looking for new ways to fund services that they simply don’t have the budget to support anymore.  They are also looking to involve the public in these design processes, partly for their ideas, but also as they want to involve those people who may well be contributing their time or making services sustainable by using them. In the

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-3850428041763024312015-10-30T12:16:00.000+00:002015-12-11T16:48:02.858+00:00

Photo credit This post is some initial thoughts for my Notwestminster workshop pitch (by the way - you have until 23 November if you want to pitch something - first batch of tickets are available 2 November @ 11.00 details here). I want to do something about the local democracy design challenge on social council meetings: Council meetings discuss many issues

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-16174030208439719762015-10-07T16:47:00.003+01:002015-10-07T16:47:15.171+01:00

Imagine that overnight a miracle happens. Local democracy becomes like rock and roll; stripped back; simple; easy to understand; emotional; exciting; and fun. How would you know? What would you notice in your daily life? In the morning? At work? In the evening? These are the questions I shared with two sessions at GovCampCymru. Below is my summary of the wonderful answers I got from the

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-79328992287060783692015-09-16T12:00:00.000+01:002015-10-07T10:47:34.180+01:00

Driver diagrams are logic charts with three or four levels.  They are a neat way to capture the links between strategy and action.  They provide a one-side-of-A4 description of what you are trying to do and how you are planning to do it.  They also show how different services contribute to broad outcomes and how all these contributions link together.  Driver diagrams

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-75572450108679219242015-09-14T14:30:00.000+01:002015-09-14T14:30:11.176+01:00

Inspired by the recent Local Democracy Maker Day and LocalGovCamp, the suggestion here is that all council ‘democracy’ publications should be provided in a single stream (rather than by individual committee) on the Council website.  Each publication would be tagged and described by a short summary (snippet).  These snippets would provide a source of open data that could be used to

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-81598754186631571432015-06-03T17:24:00.000+01:002015-07-29T12:44:14.644+01:00

Honeybee Democracy is the title of a book by Thomas Seeley.  It's about how bees make decisions and, as Seeley points out, there might be something here for people to learn from.  In this post I want to highlight those insights and suggest how bee decision making might be adapted to the practice of local democracy. The new idea here is beecision making - a method that a group of

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-25562438756100820022015-05-26T18:04:00.001+01:002015-05-28T16:54:05.579+01:00

Along with some of the #Notwestminster gang, in particular @72prufrocks and @gr8governance, I've been developing a set of design challenges for local democracy.  At this stage we just want to capture a high level list that can be used as the starting point for some serious redesigning. The raw material came from the Notwestminster event and some of the work we've done previously

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-70353554953996227262015-05-03T10:27:00.000+01:002015-05-03T13:32:08.963+01:00

This oath started with a conversation that I had with Carl Whilstlecraft and has been shaped by many others.  You can see the conversation in this storify – I think it’s important to show the workings out. What’s it for?  Well for us it’s a reminder of what we stand for and what we have learnt.  It’s also a reminder of how we need to be different in times that are rapidly

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-25130351514771309272015-03-20T12:56:00.000+00:002015-03-20T16:00:10.279+00:00

This post is a further follow up from the excellent Notwestminster event.  Check out the website to see how other stuff is progressing. Specifically this post is about the number one ‘something we need to fix’ from the User Stories for Local Democracy workshop: As a local resident I need to see council reports in a form I can easily digest so I can understand the decisions that are being

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-31299737929835140782015-02-19T17:12:00.003+00:002015-04-08T14:11:38.794+01:00

This post describes an approach to supervision that is different from the performance management approach often seen in local government.  Solution focused supervision means a conversation that improves practice by focusing on the strengths and assets of the supervisee.  Many social work and education practitioners will already be familiar with the solution focused approach.  

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-46877345562554142602015-02-10T16:43:00.000+00:002015-02-14T11:16:21.104+00:00

We don't like to talk about strategy making do we? I don't mean the stuff that the strategies are about, we love talking about that, I mean the business of making strategies; the mechanics of how they actually work. That stuff is boring isn't it? But not thinking about that stuff might be a problem if it means those strategies don't do what we want them to do. Often strategy making is just '

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891145807015716409.post-81828992301434881952015-02-10T13:33:00.000+00:002016-02-22T13:38:09.491+00:00

Carl Haggerty had it right when he blogged yesterday: Remember this date : Saturday 7th February 2015, because on Saturday in Huddersfield a special event We’re not in Westminster – Local Democracy for Everyone took place that created the space, time, inspiration and curation to bring together an amazing group of people to discuss and suggest small and big changes to how local democracy works.

Dave Mckennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17333336123721734215noreply@blogger.com2