"Balancing Act"
by Monica McWilliams
The challenge in identifying the composition of the Civic Forum is to ensure the participation of some of these disadvantaged groups.
The Coalition feels that this challenge goes far beyond the current discourse
of how many employers' groups might be represented on the Forum, or which
Church will be entitled to a seat. It is also disappointing that the main
discussion to date has been around how many seats might each group have,
rather than how organisations and sectors can meet the requirement of gender
and community balance within the Forum, or indeed how might they facilitate
the inclusion of those who have been previously excluded from decision-making.
Another interesting and relevant debate might be how those individuals who
do end up sitting in the Civic Forum might effectively use their position
to ensure as extensive an access as possible to others-through report back
mechanisms; consultation; Forum membership shadowing; etc. If the Civic
Forum is to be a building block of participative democracy rather than a
plaything for the unelectable, then we must ensure that it is quality-proofed
in all its aspects, to deliver an effective means for as broad a participation
in the political drama as possible. |
