Assembly Project

I was back in Salisbury last weekend to see a people’s assembly firsthand. The group held their first assembly only last month, and this was their second of three that they are holding with support from Assemble. Like the first, it began with a debate in small groups on issues that mattered to the local area, followed by another to come up with solutions, and finally a vote to decide on a final five proposals. The experience made me more confident about running an assembly while also showing the challenge of persuading people to come.

We gathered in a church’s functional hall on a Sunday afternoon. Of all the methods for bringing people to the assembly, word of mouth had won hands down. This project was run by a group called Salisbury Democracy Alliance (SDA), who had about a hundred people on their mailing list. The vast majority of attendees had heard about it through someone in that group.

Only a few heard about us from the market stall, and none mentioned the coverage in the local press. The door-knocking I’d participated in earlier had been great for attracting sign-ups who hadn’t then come. Why was that? Some may have had things come up, but I doubt that explains all of it. They may have signed up out of instinctive politeness for something they didn’t feel like attending or simply forgotten about it.

Apart from SDA’s volunteers, most had not been to the previous assembly. Since it was addressing the exact same task, there was no obvious reason for most attendees at the first one to come back. More encouraging was that word of mouth had brought many new faces. There was a mix of men and women, but mostly middle-aged.

How it went

Each group was led by a facilitator whose main role was to make sure that everyone had a turn speaking. I’d offered to facilitate, but since they had enough, I instead sat down to observe. I assumed I’d be a silent, passive observer, since this isn’t my town. But while they discussed some issues like road junctions that I didn’t know about, I could comment on what had been mentioned during the door-knocking and market stall campaign. And I found that I could comment on some things, such as the question of whether to pedestrianise the town centre.

The debate was remarkably friendly and respectful. There was no sign of jeering or bitter arguments. It did help that the discussion (at least on my table) was about local affairs where people tended to have a broad agreement, rather than divisive national issues. That said, even the division over national issues is typically blown out of proportion by both traditional and social media, obscuring that in practice, there tends to be a lot of common ground.

It may have helped if there was a way to negotiate on the wording of the proposals. The governance of Salisbury was a major issue that was discussed but didn’t make the final five. One that narrowly missed was “Unitary authority for South Wiltshire” – a more decentralised local council. Perhaps it could’ve passed if it had been more open-ended, albeit at the expense of another agreeable proposal.

Traffic was often discussed but there was no way to distil this into a proposal that could make final five. As a result, a suggestion to improve a roundabout that no-one on my table objected to fell by the wayside, which makes sense if the chief goal is to choose a top five issues. On the bright side, issues such as climate change and activities for young people were discussed and translated into final proposals. So too did housing, which led to two sides of criticism of the planning regime. On the one hand it had been reckless in allowing private developers to build in places such as floodplains, yet it had struggled or failed to approve brownfield developments with wide support and supply affordable homes.

An interesting question is what voting system an assembly like this should use. In this case, it was done by giving people three votes, as stickers to place on flipchart sheets. On the one hand, this resulted in the final five being reasonably significant ideas addressing a reasonably nice mix of areas. Conversely, it meant that a divisive proposal could theoretically make the final five even if most people opposed it, although this was reduced somewhat by having three votes instead of one.

One alternative might be to use approval voting. Instead of voting for their favourite, voters would vote on whether to approve or disapprove each proposal and the ones with the most approval would win. However, that too has its pitfalls. It would’ve taken longer to run and could lead to minor proposals that no-one objects to crowding out major ones with one or two dissenters.

Final thoughts

It was encouraging to see the format, tweaked based on feedback from the first, had worked well. Both the Humanity Project and Roger Hallam have stressed that getting the details right is crucial. The small groups discussion appears to be what sets apart these assemblies from other types of meetings. It’s what makes them more egalitarian, social and even fun.

It is also clear that if assemblies are to catch on more widely, while word of mouth is the most promising method, we need to find other promotion methods that work. We need to see if there is any research on what works or, if there isn’t, to do it ourselves. If door-knocking is to be used again, it will have to be different, such as trying it closer to the event or doing a stronger follow-up.