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Brighton & Hove City Council
created Jul. 28, 2011
We Live Here
The problem
The idea
Achieving genuine localism is a challenge for every area. Though Brighton & Hove has an array of active neighbourhood and community of interest engagement approaches that facilitate involvement and collaboration, like many authorities we struggle to truly reach all sections of the community. Currently structures and processes are often formal without the flexibility and responsiveness to allow engagement and dialogue on our communities’ own terms. In Brighton & Hove the first Green Administration in the UK has pledged to involve residents and community and voluntary organisations in everything that the council does.
With ever decreasing resources and the need to prioritise spending, innovation in engagement is critical. We Live Here seeks to address some of the traditional barriers to engagement by capitalising on the surge in use of social media. Well used as a social networking tool it is also a heavily used campaigning method, with significant results locally, nationally and internationally. With its proven influence and effectiveness, councils lag behind the private sector in their understanding and skills to successfully use social media.
We Live Here seeks to build shared civic spaces that will see the council, and in due course other public bodies, use social media as a tool to engage a more diverse section of the population. Working alongside existing engagement approaches the intention is to tap into the various ways that people collectively network, bringing together virtual and in person groups within a neighbourhood, and provide that ‘menu’ of options so keenly sought by public officials. The project will seek to help and support the council to share information and build two way dialogues that strengthens local democratic and decision making processes.
We Live Here has been inspired by CityCamp, a local innovation for collaborative discussion and problem solving (www.citycampbtn.org).
What we need
Tags
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A little tweak
A game changer