A HOTLINE for people to help decide how Manchester council should spend its £468m budget has received just one call.
Thousands of leaflets were distributed at an estimated cost of £1,300 urging the public to take part. They could give their call the hotline, use email or send a letter.
But the hotline rang only once and just six letters and 21 e-mails were received - all out of a population of 442,000.
Bernard Priest, the council's executive member for finance, said:
"It is always disappointing if there is a limited response to this type of consultation, but it is really important to give taxpayers a chance to let us know their views on how their money is spent.
Disappointing may well be an understatement,but onece agin this shows local democracy at work.People are simply not interested and the consequence is that large spending budgets are left in the hands of people who rarely come under piublic scrutiny,It's not their fault but how many of us bother to vote at local elections.
At the last local electiuons in Manchester in May 2007,turnout in the various wards hovered around the 25% mark.
The electoral commision asked to report on the woeful turnout figures for the 2005 general election concluded that there was a great deal of work to be done by all parties in engaging the electorate.
In this respect then Manchester needs to do a lot more
1 comment:
Nigel,
I can recommend one thing that Manchester council SHOULDN'T spend their budget on - and that is producing thousands of leaflets to promote hotlines.
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