One of the main innovations in terms of active citizenship learning at the CVS had been prompted by the Take Part Pathfinder’s requirement to promote civic engagement and increase people’s influence as citizens. This led to information (‘How-to Guides’) and courses to increase information about opportunities. A number of short ‘civic taster’
sessions were devised; most of them in partnership with relevant public agencies who provided expert input and sometimes co-delivered the sessions. The majority of participants attended them mainly in order to, as the title indicated, find out ‘How to Become a Magistrate/Police Authority Member/School Governor’ (etc). The sessions aimed to be practical and accessible, and with experts on hand, they gave learners the chance to ask questions. The following quotations explain the value of these short courses:
‘Yes I'd recommend [the magistrates course]; it genuinely was good and
informative. […] I liked the fact that it wasn't all theory, that there was a practical bit with the button pushing and discussion. I always like discussing things, and I just liked to find out more about it before I actually decided to apply.’ (Cassandra)
‘I thought I’d go and find out about magistrates, and that was an excellent session, really good, most interesting, very charismatic speaker [a Magistrate], excellent, yeah, I actually put in an application and visited the courts for three days, as you
should. Yes, absolutely captivating, that one. The closing date is around November, this year and they invited me to the first interview sometime in January.’ (Marian)
‘Which part or aspect of the session did you find the most useful to help you decide whether to apply?’
The sentencing exercises and the feedback from the magistrates in attendance. It was particularly helpful to be able to talk to them during the session and get a feel for what it would require and what the [magistrate] training would be like. […] I thought the sessions worked well, with the opportunity to ask questions at the end and meet others who were interested in doing the same thing. There was enough to stimulate questions without going into to much detail for those who did not wish to pursue things further.’ (written feedback to researcher questions by an unlabelled learner; my emphasis)
An important aspect of the civic tasters was their interactive nature. The feedback from learners was unambiguous: people from all backgrounds not only preferred this method of finding out about such complex roles in more detail (the magistrate’s role, and eligibility criteria for becoming one, are commonly misunderstood), but also to decide whether to pursue their interest further – and some would otherwise not have applied.
‘You see, after I'd been on the course I went ahead and researched it more and at that point I looked at the Magistrates Association website, afterwards, but I wouldn't have done it I think without the course, the course was very helpful.’
(Cassandra)
‘Because you can read it on the Internet, you can read it on a piece of paper and you can read it in a book, but sometimes you miss a bit or you don't understand, and that point can be made [at a taster session] and it can clear up a lot of problems.’ (Martha)
One of the learners I had contacted as part of a follow up of the magistrates who had been appointed, explained how a Take Part course brought the role to her attention in the first instance. The information was provided by email.
‘[Magistrates] was mentioned on the final session of our Take Part course [Taking the Lead] as one of the avenues to pursue on completion if we were interested.
[The taster] made me think that I had something to offer despite my age (63) and made it very clear what was wanted. Without this session I would not have applied this year and would then probably have left it too late given the cutbacks.’
(Learner, via email)
Apart from informing course participants about civic roles the taster sessions also contributed to civic knowledge, providing another, contextualised but more in-depth aspect of ‘how the systems work’. Several learners mentioned this benefit and how they had subsequently used and shared this information in their active citizen roles.
Similarly, the ‘How to Become a Councillor’ produced some unexpected outcomes. It enabled participants to increase their understanding of local democracy and the role of the local councillor. The one-off taster (which I attended) was delivered in partnership between the CVS and the local authority, at the council offices, involving the Council’s Member Services Officer and the Community Engagement Officer. It even used existing information materials, and yet, without the impetus of the Take Part Pathfinder, the local authority would not have run such a session. Furthermore, the course was fully booked and had been advertised widely including in the local paper and to community contacts of the Engagement Officer. It attracted a wide range of people including some who were new to the CVS, and who subsequently attended other Take Part events. The first part covered the procedural aspects of how to become a councillor, and for the second part an
experienced local councillor had volunteered to discuss her views with course participants.
The presence of the councillor attracted some participants to the course, such as this activist from a community organisation:
‘Because I have a lot of dealings with my city councillors and the city council as well, […] I also wanted to understand... it's very easy for me to find the things they do wrong and find fault but I wanted to find out why sometimes they make those decisions and what's behind it.’ (Hugh)
Another learner who went on to participate in several other Take Part courses articulated a similar rationale for active citizens to use this knowledge as a condition for involvement:
‘Like the local councillor workshop - I don't think I will be applying any time soon - but I think it's good to find out how it works and how your community works, and to understand it better. Because I think it's really hard to be active and engaged in your community […] if you don't understand how it works.’ (Livia, my emphasis)
Incidentally (but highly relevant to the wider debate) it is possible that some of the
participants’ own agendas at this fully booked session may have emerged all too ostensibly – since the session ended in a very lively debate with the councillor who was criticised by some vocal participants for not engaging her constituents more effectively - a very topical discussion central to New Labour’s Community Empowerment at the time, which stood in stark contrast with the position of the local Labour party towards community engagement and the sharing of community leadership. Unfortunately, the ‘success’ of this session may have deterred the council from repeating it under the Pathfinder, and for a while.
However, writing in September 2013, it would appear that the How to Become a Councillor session is to be repeated twice in Local Democracy Week as a joint venture between the CVS and the Council, one at the CVS and another at the Council24.
In sum, shorter civic courses may have enabled individual citizen involvement although this research is unable to ascertain how much they contributed to actual increases in involvement, let alone address issues of under-representation in civic roles. To find this out would require a long-tem, systematic follow up of participants. However, it can be argued that their value lay more in the contextualised civic knowledge they provided, which, as some learners argued, underpins active citizen confidence and ‘empowerment’.