Democratic Dreaming: How to Shake the Dust off Area Forums

For many councils, area forums are at the heart of democratic engagement. But despite noble intentions, some have drifted away from their original purpose. How do we reimagine them, asks Catriona Maclay from our practice team.
Meeting people where they are – which is rarely in a meeting
Last night I dreamt that I was discussing this blog with my late Glasgow-born Grandfather, who told me, “There are more ways of engaging with democracy than there are lochs in Scotland.”
Pappy was no political theorist, but he knew how to bring people together – it was hard to get to the shops without it turning into a minor community event. And he was right of course. As citizens around the country are the first to tell us, there are boundless ways in which people can dive into the democratic process. So it’s funny he should turn up with some words of wisdom as I stop to reflect on a recent series of projects on local democratic working.
We’ve been working with a few councils reviewing one of the most common formats – Area Forums. These can go by many names (area committees, ward forums, ward partnerships etc.), but at the heart is a rolling schedule of formal, localised meetings bringing together citizens with councillors and officers to tackle local problems, questions and ideas (as distinct from Local Area Coordination, or the wider strengths-based, place-based approach to building trust and connection between people and services, which we’re big fans of at New Local). Area Forums might have decision-making powers, they might operate at ward-level or across bigger areas, they might formally co-opt residents, and they sometimes have funds to distribute. But at the heart is a commitment to creating a localised democratic connection between residents and the council through regular meetings. Surely this sounds great?
Despite the noble intentions of Area Forums and the successes they can bring, there are also challenges, with many drifting far from their original promise.
We have heard from many councils around the country that despite the noble intentions of Area Forums and the successes they can bring, there are also challenges, with many drifting far from their original promise. As many councils review the structures to support democratic engagement and become more ambitious in how they co-produce these activities with communities, Area Forums are ripe for a refresh.
What’s going wrong
We’ve heard some common experiences of what’s not working, including the following:
- Poor representation: Despite best attempts and notable outliers and successes (see below), resident attendance is frequently low. They often attract an unrepresentative segment of the population at large, with lower engagement from younger people, ethnically minoritised communities, and those who are actually the heaviest users of council services.
- Not relevant for all: Residents, officers and councillors have told us that they ended up having repeat discussions on issues which only affected a slim proportion of the population – either because the issue is so geographically localised that it’s irrelevant for others in the meeting, or because it just affects a small group. Often administrative boundaries that meetings are focused on don’t match the community’s sense of ‘local’.
They often felt like extensions of a council meeting, mired in bureaucratic processes or performative set-pieces.
- Dividing not uniting: Some residents have felt that party-political disputes got in the way of tackling the problems at hand. And in the worst cases, meetings have acted as a lightning rod for polarised conflict and intimidation.
- Just a bit dull? Many of the people we spoke to became most honest in describing their experience of attending Area Forums. They often felt like extensions of a council meeting, mired in bureaucratic processes or performative set-pieces. Amidst busy lives and competing priorities, residents in many areas have voted with their feet.
New life into old forums
When considering how to revitalise their Area Forums, we’ve broadly heard councils respond in one of two ways. Some have focused on retaining the structure, but proactively tackling the problems with engagement and inclusivity.
With resolve – and some resources – this can work. Great ideas include bringing decision-making to life (like exploring council budgeting through a participatory game of monopoly), trialling more informal meeting structures to encourage interactivity, or working proactively with community groups to broaden attendance. They probably work best where there is already a deeply embedded culture of working well with the Area Forum structures – when both residents and council officers have experience of getting something useful done.
The other approach which we’ve increasingly seen is councils ditching the structure entirely and trying to rejuvenate local democratic working in less formal ways. These approaches usually build on the core principle of going where people are congregating anyway, whether in a faith group meeting, market square or barber shop, as a way of building in inclusivity from the outset. We’ve heard from councils kicking off their new approaches by training councillors and officers in appreciative enquiry in order to conduct proactive listening activities; focusing on embedding councillors at the heart of deliberative processes; taking the question of engagement itself to communities with a Citizen’s Jury; or simply moving to a much more flexible, responsive rolling set of informal meetings between councillors and citizens, often organised around existing community activities and relationships, and complementing council-wide opportunities to engage residents in big decisions. They often focus on creating an atmosphere which is informal, relational and a little bit fun.
The many functions of forums
Above all, we’ve returned to a very basic lesson: that knowing exactly what you want to achieve will make it much easier to get there. One of the first steps we’ve taken with the councils we have worked with is to help them think through their objectives for local democratic working. When we asked residents, councillors and officers what they most wanted to see, they often spoke not about formal decision-making power, but of the softer ‘connective tissue’ of relationships, trust and listening. In fact once you start mapping the objectives, you see that there are a lots of distinct elements on the wish list.

Rejuvenating local democracy requires action on more fronts than any one structure could hope to deliver. Amidst a desperate funding gap, councils cannot simply create a meeting for each of these aims.
Several of these are complementary and overlapping. They are certainly all important. But we think that the experience of many Area Forums shows that you CAN’T do everything everywhere all at once. It’s tough to build positive local relationships in the same format as you hold decision-makers to account. And it’s tough to truly hear what residents most care about when a council-set agenda defines the conversation.
Rejuvenating local democracy requires action on more fronts than any one structure could hope to deliver. Amidst a desperate funding gap, councils cannot simply create a meeting for each of these aims – and neither councillors nor residents could be expected to show up for all of them. The evidence suggest that wouldn’t work anyway. While the mixed tapestry of activities that several councils are moving to might be less recognisable as classic democratic structures, they offer the possibility of better honouring the original intent – bringing people together around shared priorities.
Building trust, relationships and shared purpose isn’t something any single meeting can deliver – it’s the business of dozens of interactions, both with a purpose and without, over time, in myriad settings that suit our myriad lifestyles.
And that brings me back to Pappy Maclay and the many Scottish lochs. No matter who you’re talking to – officers, councillors, citizens – there is a shared yearning for the trust, relationships and sense of shared purpose that we hope for nationally, and that we NEED in our day-to-day local lives. But building trust, relationships and shared purpose isn’t something any single meeting can deliver – it’s the business of dozens of interactions, both with a purpose and without, over time, in myriad settings that suit our myriad lifestyles. It’s a lot of finding the super-connectors (Scottish nonagenarians or otherwise), hanging out at the shops, and building on the magic of those everyday minor community events.
We’ll be continuing to work on these ideas and would love to hear from anyone who’d like to contribute. Does this resonate with your experiences? How have you got around the pitfalls or developed new approaches? Do get in touch if you’re interested in sharing your views or hearing more.
