A group of academics, postgraduate students and practitioners working in policy, media, community action and development, local councils, disability and youth have formed an informal consultees group to examine the White Paper on Local Government Reform.
The group commended the attention that the White Paper gives to Local Councils and Regional Councils and welcomed the proposals for additional technocratic expertise within these structures.
They recommended, however, that small-scale community contexts should act as incubators of holistic social economic and environmental wellbeing based on community development. Emancipatory local governance; Communication, networking and resourcing; Inclusion and diversity were some of the key points that the consultees elaborated upon.
Members of the group went further by suggesting some concrete new proposals. These included periodic training on customer care that combats patronage and parochialism; mentoring programmes to support local and regional councils’ officers at all stages of their involvement; project design and management particularly to apply for and manage EU funds; and improved consultation methods with all residents involving both quantitative and qualitative approaches for evidence-based policy making.
A local government reform, they argued, should acknowledge the need for organised, interactive and informal citizen spaces. Social media platforms (e.g. Facebook groups) that have spontaneously emerged from grassroots’ and laypersons’ initiatives suggest a thirst for this.
The contributors included academics like Prof. Andrew Azzopardi (Faculty for Social Wellbeing), Dr Marie Briguglio (Department of Economics) and Mr Colin Borg, (Department of Public Policy); Local Councillors like Ms Stephania Fenech (Zejtun Local Council), practitioners like Mr Oliver Scicluna (Commissioner for the Rights of Persons with Disability) and Mr Melvic Zammit (Public Broadcasting Services), as well as activists like Mr Eman Borg (Kunsill Nazzjonali taż-Żgħażagħ) and students like Ms Denise Farrugia. Dr Maria Brown (Sociologist) coordinated the initiative.
