Citizens in Power works with communities, local authorities, and third-sector organisations to co-design ways for communities to lead decision-making and shape the future. It uses the citizen assembly model to support local people to lead in decision-making.
Citizens in Power uses the citizens' assembly model for decisions about how creative and cultural resources are deployed. Our grant supports them to create a network of organisations developing citizen-led decision making. They will also form an action learning set and demonstration model for culture and creativity to add to learning around this approach.
Citizens in Powers' work to date in Cumbria, Nottingham and the South West has shown the range of impact this work can have, from community decision-making to new governance models and rethinking how culture and creativity are resourced.
Connection to Esmée's strategy
- Priorities
- Long-term outcomes
- Local and regional cultural strategies are shaped by citizens and impact wider decision making and agendas for change.
From Alison Holdom, Funding Manager Lead, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation:
Citizens in Power is illustrating the transformational potential of citizens' assemblies when applied to culture and creativity. It is building new governance models, new ways of developing strategy and is helping to shift creative activity from an offer or service to a citizen-led collaboration with artists.
From Citizens in Power:
The Citizens In Power Network brings together organisations, practitioners and local authorities to work together to develop models of citizen-led decision-making. When we say citizens, we refer to the original meaning of the word as inhabitants – people who live, work, or stay in a place – in other words everyone. The network was born out of a desire for communities to lead and shape funded creativity and culture in their area. We have just enjoyed the first gatherings of Members and Associates for the network, so we are at the beginning of a three-year journey. But we can already see some themes and impacts emerging, which we expect to grow over the coming years:
- Allyship: everyone in the network is trying to change how power operates in their local community. They are using tools likes citizens’ juries and citizens’ assemblies to enable people to lead decision-making in and around the cultural sector. This is sometimes related to programming, governance, or public policy. The work is challenging because it is about persuading current powerbrokers, at all levels, to shift their mindset, and to change power dynamics. When you are trying to change a system, it can be a lonely occupation, so the allyship of other people who are pursuing similar aims, in different parts of the country, is proving to be a huge encouragement and incentive.
- National impact: the leadership of the people in the network is enabling change in local communities but often that relies on those individuals to sustain that change over time. It is already clear and obvious that for a sustained shift towards citizen-led decision-making, regulatory frameworks, legislation, and approaches to funding need to change, to embed change for the long-term. By being together in a network, we already feel more confident to approach and influence policy makers and regulators, as well as seek out other networks who are trying to achieve a similar impact, and work together.
- Storytelling: we recognise that making a change from conventional group-led and hierarchical decision-making models to citizen-led decision-making is not just about changing systems, it is also about rewiring the way we think. The three core principles of citizen-led decision-making – 1) authority gathering and giving 2) civic lotteries to achieve representative groups of people and 3) deliberative processes rather than debating – are so different from our conventional way of doing things. We expect one of the values of the network, operating across a multiplicity of projects and environments, will be to find ways to tell stories which make the practice of citizen-led decision-making feel more everyday and part of our culture.
We are in the early days of the network, but we have already been reminded that the cultural sector is full of generous, collaborative, and inventive people, who want to find a better way of doing things. The network operates as part of a wider movement, across sectors, to shift towards citizen-led decision-making. The network’s work to date shows that the creativity of the cultural sector is likely to make a significant contribution to this wider societal movement by developing more creative and innovative approaches to citizens’ juries and citizens’ assemblies.
More information about the image at the top: A Voice Assembly meeting held at New Art Exchange in Hyson Green, Nottingham, which is a member of the Citizens in Power Network. New Art Exchange has developed the idea of Voice Assembly to sit as a permanent feature in its governance structure, alongside the Board and Executive, in a three-pillar model. Its Artistic Director, Saad Eddine Said, is also co-director of Citizens In Power. Photo Credit: Tom Morley
