Democracy? It’s in the eye of beholder, from Brum to Bruges

tion, with some razzmatazz, to address voter apathy and political disengagement. But its particular focus was young people – to raise their awareness of what their own council does, and how they, even the not-yet voters, could still get involved in their community and influence its decisions.

More than 300 councils participated, organising manifold ‘democratic’ activities, and it was judged a considerable success – as it has been generally over the years.

This time, though, judging from personal observation, we had the situational irony of many councils seemingly having themselves caught some of the apathy they were supposed to be dispelling in their young citizens.

Google ‘Local Democracy Week Birmingham’, for example, and you get the city council newsroom (that’s good), publicising an Erdington Democracy Day event on Saturday October (yes?) 17th, 2009 (Blow! Just missed it).

OK, I’m being unfair. Young people use social media, not council websites, and on Facebook there were “exciting opportunities for Birmingham schools” to meet and shadow the Lord Mayor and other senior councillors, learn what it’s like to be an elected member, and on Instagram a very politically correct photo of Lord Mayor Carl Rice welcoming some of the chosen ones.

Possibly, then, more councils were organising more democratic happenings than I realised.

I hope so, because, difficult as these austere times are, I could have directed them to some surprisingly positive statistics that are surely worth sharing.

In 2007, the European Congress of Local and Regional Authorities were so taken with the UK’s Local Democracy Week that they pinched it – extending it into European LDW, with local authorities from all Council of Europe states doing the kinds of things we’d started a decade earlier.

This year’s ELDW was an appropriate moment, therefore, to release results from the Eurobarometer survey into the trust citizens from 34 European countries say they have in their regional or local authorities.

In the first 2008 survey, 50 per cent of the total sample said they tended to trust their local authorities. Finns, Danes and Swedes topped the list with more than 70 per cent, followed by Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France all over 60 per cent. Croatia and Italy were the laggards, with under 30 per cent, and the UK, with 47 per cent but 48 per cent tending not to trust, posted a net negative in 15th place.

Eight years on, perhaps unsurprisingly, local trust overall has fallen, from 50 per cent to 46 per cent, and likewise most individual countries’ figures. Finland, Netherlands and Belgium have each dropped seven points or more, and France a startling 11, putting it below the UK, which, with 53 per cent to 47 per cent is now in 10th place.

It’s not the Olympics medal table, but, with a quarter fewer employees today than in 2008, our councils must be doing something right, and that’s worth celebrating. Chris Game is a visiting lecturer at the Institute of Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham

Possibly, more councils were organising more democratic happenings than I realised