With Europe in economic crisis, unemployment and social exclusion are increasingly common. Eight cities set up the URBACT project TOGETHER under the conviction that such problems can only be tackled properly by public authorities, citizens and economic stakeholders working better together, in an approach known as active citizenship, or “co-responsibility”. Sharing a resolve to reduce the distance between government and citizens, TOGETHER’s partnership of municipalities looked at how to improve social inclusion and well-being through actions that involve people at grass-roots level– whether as parents, service users, patients, tenants, residents or passengers. Drawing on the Council of Europe’s extensive work on co-responsibility, including the draft European Charter for Shared Social Responsibilities (2011), TOGETHER’s partners investigated new ways for building productive relationships between councils, civic associations and citizens, and – by analysing their various experiences – contributed to the development of new ideas in co-responsibility.

Main results

Co-responsibility : An Open Method of Engaging with Citizens

The URBACT project TOGETHER applied a particularly open approach to helping citizens speak for themselves and identify actions to be taken in each city.  

The process involved each of the URBACT Local Support Groups organising a series of local focus groups throughout their municipalities, 147 in total across the eight partner cities. All participants were asked three open-ended questions: “What do you understand by well-being?”, “What do you understand by ill-being?” and “What do you do, and can you do, as a citizen to ensure your own well-being and the well-being of all?” Each answer was coded in an indicator database developed over recent years by The Council of Europe to reflect the enormous range of responses to questions on well-being and ill-being. The TOGETHER project’s Lead Partner says the partner cities “tested a consultative computer tool for citizen engagement which, if simplified, could be used widely by public authorities across Europe.”

To tackle the issues arising from focus group discussions, pilot actions were then set up in each city, starting in late 2011. They varied enormously in scope, but all involved new, active relationships between the municipality, civic associations and citizens. One example is a Social Pharmacy set up in Kavala in 2012, prompted by the economic crisis. More than 150 volunteers help collect unused medicines from people’s homes, manage the shop and provide administrative support. The Council arranged for the use of vacant premises in a shopping market. Doctors and pharmacists check the medicines, organise their storage, and give advice. The project has attracted interest from other Greek cities. Another pilot project is the Children’s Parliament in Braine l’Alleud, where local school children make proposals on health, respect and solidarity, culture and leisure and environment. And in Botkyrka, council staff, police and local groups set up night patrols (see “Zoom on Botkyrka”).

Inga Jekabsone from TOGETHER partner city Salaspils says: “The methodology has helped the Municipality to unite its community. For the first time people from different social groups came together to discuss different topical issues.”

TOGETHER’s partners found that the wide range of responses was not easy to code and compute, precisely because their approach did not pigeon-hole people and their answers. However, they state: “When utilised with good policy discussion, the material from the focus groups provides a rich seam of material which can deepen the understanding of the range of issues, which are of concern to all sections of the local community. In particular, the focus groups show that people’s concerns are not just restricted to the bread and butter issues – work, health, housing and education. A whole range of ‘softer’ or ‘wicked’ issues emerge – such as discrimination, loneliness, isolation, bureaucracy, police behaviour, personal relations, stress, self-esteem, exclusion, community and solidarity. This broadens the traditional political and cultural agenda and requires new political skills and approaches from local authorities.”

TOGETHER concludes: “For councils and public bodies across Europe who are keen to listen more closely and engage more effectively with their citizens, here is a method that they could valuably use. They will need to fit the method to their circumstances. But there is no doubt that this approach can help public bodies who are committed to extending citizens’ participation.” 

A Seven Point Scale of Citizen Engagement

A number of the partners in TOGETHER had already experimented with approaches to testing citizen engagement. Building on this, and in light of other researchers’ work in the field of citizen engagement, the seven point scale developed under the TOGETHER project grouped various aspects of citizen engagement and suggested a ladder of attainment. During the project, each partner city used this new scale to identify the type and extent of participation in its pilot projects, as well as the character of its Local Support Group, and the wider ambition of its municipality. 

TOGETHER presents the scale as an instrument that could enables citizens, non-governmental organisations and councils across Europe to measure the extent of citizen engagement on a project, programme or strategic plan in their city.

1. Minimal engagement
The Municipality consults citizens or voluntary organisations on a few topics or in an occasional survey, but appears to take little notice of the results. This is pejoratively known as tokenism.

2. Formal partnership
A formal relationship with a number of organisations outside of the municipality is established. These partners sit around the table but the local authority or the government agency chairs the meeting and takes all the key decisions.

3. An engaged partnership
Has the feel of a much more equal arrangement with the partners/voluntary organisations having some real influence on agenda and decision-making. However, ultimately the Municipality retains the decisive influence.

4. Co-governance
The strategic planning of a service or a project or a programme. Actors from different organisations and sectors determine shared policy priorities and may translate these into strategic plans. 

5. Co-management
Different organisations work alongside each other to coordinate the delivery of a service or project. Actors from different sectors and organisations use their respective resources to contribute directly in practical ways to the delivery of a specific project or service.

6. Co-production
Citizens produce, at least in part, the services they use themselves.

7. Co-responsibility
The elements outlined in points 4-6 are combined across a whole sector, for example, within the education system in a city, or its economic regeneration. The ultimate goal would be to achieve this across an entire territory, in other words, across all the services within a neighbourhood or district.

Prospects

A range of small-scale, imaginative pilot actions have been generated across the partner cities. Each Local Action Plan includes a variety of initiatives using co-responsibility methods, some with specific funding or staff resources. Partners have indicated important shifts in service practice and process; moves towards greater citizen and civic engagement; and certain areas of the municipality’s work where new practices would be embedded.  

However, by mid-2013, none of the Local Action Plans had been able to chart a convincing strategy for embedding new approaches to co-responsibility within major areas of their service, or territorial provision in the immediate future. TOGETHER concludes that the biggest obstacle remains how to bridge the gap between running limited pilot actions and embedding the approach in the mainstream, even for cities like the Lead Partner Mulhouse that have relatively strong histories of encouraging co-responsibility. Financial crisis and austerity makes this challenge all the more daunting. 

In terms of an ongoing international engagement, two of the partner cities, Braine l’Alleud and Kavala, have agreed to work with a third city, Lisbon, on sustaining the Territories of Co-responsibility Network for the period 2013-2015, together with the Council of Europe. 

Read more

• Together project minisite - Urbact website
• Zoom on Salaspils - Urbact Website
• Zoom on Botkyrka - Urbact Website