Reflecting on our series of research sessions exploring how citizens can co-create a cultural strategy

Citizens for Culture is a partnership with Trinity Community Arts, St Pauls Carnival and David Jubb of Citizens In Power. Together we are exploring how we can co-create a cultural strategy for the city and surrounding region.

During the research phase, funded by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch), we invited a range of collaborators from the sector who place participation at the heart of their practice to hear from some of the best speakers working in democratic decision making right now.

Part 5: deliberative workshops

In January and February 2023 we organised three deliberative workshops with the aim of devising a long-term, citizen-led process that will shape a cultural plan for the area.

In our first session, we heard from Sarah James, the creative and cultural programme lead at West of England Combined Authority. She spoke about the Combined Authority’s Cultural Compact – a group consisting of representatives from four Unitary Authorities (Bath and North-East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire) that aims to focus and amplify the role of culture in the region as a driver for economic success, placemaking, community cohesion and personal wellbeing. Sarah talked us through the evolving Cultural Plan for the region and how this connects with other active cultural conversations in the area.

The group then briefly discussed the application process for previous rounds of the government’s City Of Culture competition, from the initial expression of interest through to the judges’ panel visit and interviews. It was agreed that it would be up to the Citizens’ Assembly for Culture as to whether an application for future competitions would be relevant or not.

The group then moved on to discuss the idea of Deliberation – a key methodology used in Citizens’ Assemblies. We heard from Professor Alan Renwick (Deputy Director at UCL’s Constitution Unit) who described the key components which lead to deliberative and consensus decision-making and how this differs from a more conventional debating approach.

Following this first session, we felt that it would be good to bring some of the principles Alan Renwick discussed to life with a couple of stories from inside a Citizen’s Assembly. Therefore, to start our second deliberative workshop, executive director of St Pauls Carnival and regular Citizens’ Assembly facilitator LaToyah McAllister-Jones shared some stories that helped immerse us back into the world of assemblies, understand more about their conduct, and remind us that there is expertise around these kinds of participatory processes in our teams and region for us to draw on.

Following this, we spent some time delving more deeply into the way Citizens’ Assemblies are organised and delivered. Sarah Allan, one of the UK’s leading experts in Citizens’ Assemblies, who is director of capacity building and standards at Involve, joined us to explore the way assemblies are designed along with some of the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the assembly model. She delved into the governance of Citizens’ Assemblies, and how the different stages of assemblies work. After considering the core components of a Citizens’ Assembly, we deliberated together to create a list of other exercises or approaches that we thought could add value to the assembly model.

In the final session, we came together to explore our ideas for a citizen-led process for the west of England region. We set out to create a long-term and affordable and citizen-led process that could create a Cultural Plan for the region. Our main questions and themes were: How can the process itself be creative & cultural? How can the process be inclusive and diverse at every stage? Who are the stakeholders in the process and how can we bring them on the journey? Could the assembly have a federal structure with sub-groups to reflect the different areas across the region? Based on the experience and discussions from all three of the deliberative workshops, we outlined a process as a basic prototype, to be tested with citizens and the wider sector in autumn 2023.

We caught up with Anjali, Citizens for Culture producer, to find out more about Citizens for Culture.

Earlier this year, we recruited Anjali Prashar-Savoie as the Citizens’ Assembly producer to help with the successful delivery of the Assembly. We caught up with her to find out more about the project that will take place in 2025.

Hello Anjali! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you’ve come to be the producer of the Citizens’ Assembly.

I’ve been working in the cultural sector and in nightlife with a focus on grassroots culture, community organising, and creating spaces that prioritise people, equity, and access. I’m really passionate about how culture can drive new forms of social and civic participation, especially given the current political, environmental, and social challenges that we collectively face.

This experience led me to the Citizens’ Assembly Producer role. I’m grateful to contribute to something that represents the kind of systemic change we need in both culture and society as a whole. Often, we know what challenges we face in culture and beyond, but practical moves towards solutions can be difficult to organise at scale. The Citizens’ Assembly stood out to me because it offered a practical model for doing culture differently. 

What has your experience been of the job so far?

So far, I’ve been connecting with cultural workers, organisations, and grassroots organisers to get people involved in the project and understand how Citizens’ Assemblies can be useful. I’m also working on expanding a wider Citizens for Culture network to make sure that the Assembly is shaped by the people it serves.

You’re currently working on connecting with other cultural organisations and individuals in the region over Citizens For Culture. Why should people in the cultural sector engage with this project?

The sector is filled with incredible talent and group efforts that make for an exciting and diverse culture. However, sometimes the work on the ground doesn’t trickle upwards into decision-making and policy. On top of that, a lot of the cultural sector is made up of freelancers who work somewhat disconnected from each other, meaning we work in silos.

Engaging with Citizens for Culture will connect people interested in citizen or community-led culture. This means you can expand your network, share information, skills, and resources, participate in upcoming workshops, and contribute to collective advocacy efforts to influence policies and secure better support for culture in the region. It provides an opportunity to build meaningful relationships with citizens and other cultural workers, creating a collaborative community with shared goals of doing things differently.

Citizens for Culture also connects you with the Citizens’ Assembly set to happen early next year. We are looking for people in the cultural sector to become associates of the assembly and help guide what happens next. By engaging with this project, together, we can make sure your voice is amplified to shape the Assembly, and that the outcomes of the assembly are supported. Overall, this is a region-wide collaborative project that is worth being a part of because the process and outcomes will be determined by the people who join. 

Anything else you would like to add?

We are offering online information sessions over the summer to learn more. The sessions will cover what a citizens’ assembly is and how you can get involved. In these sessions, we will also be seeking your input into our upcoming workshop series that will run throughout the Autumn. 

Additionally, I love to chat. If you are a creative, cultural worker, venue, organisation or community organiser in the region, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to reach out to me directly at anjali@trinitybristol.org.uk to chat about all things culture, community and Citizens’ Assembly. 

We’re connecting with cultural leaders to explore the civic and democratic tools that we, as citizens, can access

Here LaToyah McAllister-Jones, executive director of St Pauls Carnival, reflects on her experiences of using various tools to facilitate democratic decision-making.

Opinion: LaToyah McAllister-Jones on voices in decision-making

I have always been attracted to work and play that enables people to have a voice. To be heard. After years of working with marginalised groups, from managing accommodation services for street homeless people to community organising in Hackney, I have developed an interest in the right to influence decisions being made about our lives.

One of the most interesting things about leading a community arts organisation is just how integral the community is to our work. St Pauls Carnival CIC is merely a custodian for the iconic event; we provide a stage and the community fills those spaces. Carnival celebrates African Caribbean talent in St Pauls and beyond as well as our culture and heritage. Our communities continue the traditions of our ancestors using music, dance and storytelling to share lived experiences and connect to our heritage. This is one of the most important things about our event: it allows us to tell our own stories, in our own words, using our voices.

In 2021, I was asked by Bristol City Council to facilitate a Citizens’ Assembly supporting policy development in housing, health inequalities and transport as the city emerged from Covid. The process was new to me, and I loved the way it cut through many of the challenges that we often come up against when engaging communities:

• Participants are randomly selected, and usually aren’t experts in the central assembly topic. There is a process to ensure that all participants are able to meaningfully contribute to the discussions, and this is critical to the success of an assembly.
• The process seeks to facilitate consensus, rather than debate which tends to have a winner and a loser.
• Participants are encouraged to explore what their real priorities are and what they might be prepared to forego for those priorities.
• Assemblies bring together a diverse range of people who you wouldn’t necessarily find together in a traditional social setting. This creates an opportunity for vastly differing viewpoints to be heard and influence how others participants might think about a topic.

St Pauls Carnival are currently delivering a Citizens’ Assembly for Culture in partnership with Trinity Community Arts, Citizens In Power and West Of England Combined Authority. The idea developed just as we were coming out of the pandemic and thinking about the lessons learnt; particularly the role of community. Together, we were curious about what it would look like to use the assembly process – democratic, person-centred and thinking about strengths of a place, its people and its assets – to reimagine what the cultural offer could look like in the South West region.

Democratic decision-making allows citizens to actively contribute to the discourse that shapes their communities. We also believe culture is experienced by everyone, in many different ways, and everyone should be able to access the culture that represents them. If this is to be the ambition, it is vital that we put people at the centre of that process. This means understanding how people experience culture, what it means to them and, as cultural leaders, asking ‘how can we reflect this in our approach and programming?’

The new Labour Government expressed an interest in the use of Citizens’ Assemblies earlier this year, and the format has been used to unpack challenging issues like abortion in Ireland. The South West region is already embedding this approach into how we speak to our communities, and we are at the forefront of using assemblies to understand how we deliver for everyone, and not just those who can afford it or who have easy access to culture.

Our Citizens’ Assembly for Culture project offers an exciting opportunity to create a new approach to engaging people in the cultural life of a place. The Assembly will take place in Spring 2025 as a central programme within Culture West, funded by the West of England Combined Authority and Arts Council South West. The recommendations coming from this Assembly will become part of the regional approach to delivering a citizen-led cultural offer.