All parties now favour citizen engagement and empowerment. But when and how? Hazel Blears outlined proposals yesterday “to pass more influence, power and control” to local communities and citizens. She invoked the great battles over democracy, from the Putney Debates of 1647 onwards. But her plans did not live up to this rhetoric.

Some of the ideas are good, such as encouraging more directly elected mayors and making police forces more accountable, including through direct elections. Some are sensible, such as requiring councils to be more responsive via petitions and new forms of redress Other proposals are worrying, such as relaxing the Widdecombe rules banning council officers from political activity – brought in in the 1980s – and giving backbench councillors power to shift local budgets to target ward priorities. This risks partisan favouritism. Some are plain daft, such as giving councils the power to provide incentives for voting in local elections by entering voters into a prize draw.

But underlying the slogan of empowerment are three broader questions: first, isn’t the key to local democracy requiring councils to raise more of their own funds? Secondly, how far is local participation about individual choice between services? And, thirdly, how far can these experiments in direct democracy be taken without undermining representative democracy?

The latter is addressed in a paper, A National Framework for Greater Citizen Engagement, from Michael Wills at the Ministry of Justice. This seeks to define the scope for direct democracy nationally. His paper is deliberately cautious about when national referendums should be held, largely by referring to the precedent of when they have been held, on what are vaguely called “fundamental issues”. So calling them will remain ad hoc.

The most contentious issue is the use of deliberative forums such as citizens’ summits (of 500 to 1,000), to be submitted to Parliament for approval, and citizens’ juries (of 50 to 100 overall). These can help to clarify choices. Participants find these forums rewarding but, unlike elections, they cannot be regarded as truly representative in that those not taking part have no say over who does. There is a danger with such innovations of giving power to activist minorities. Moreover, there is ample evidence that many voters do not want to participate directly in national decisions: these are for government and Parliament to sort out. The real scope for direct democracy and participation is local, as described by Ms Blears, apart from the occasional referendum. Nationally, the priority is to reinvigorate representative democracy.

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