By Kaifeng YangThe trust that public administrators put in citizens is an important consideration in citizen participation. If they do not trust citizens, it becomes difficult to formulate and implement policies that really engage, empower, and emancipate them. This study attempts to answer four questions: Is public officials’ trust in citizens relevant and important? Is it a valid construct that can be differentiated from other constructs? What factors influence its level? And how does trust influence citizen involvement efforts? Based on a survey of 320 public administrators, the study finds that public administrators’ trust in citizens is relevant and that it is a predictor of proactive citizen involvement efforts. Public administrators generally have a neutral (neither trustful nor distrustful) view of citizens. Finally, factors affecting the level of trust are identified at the individual, organizational, and societal levels.
County councils who were criticised last week by the Society of IT Management for failing the e-democracy because many did not promote the county council elections, see Publicnet 6 May 2005, have now been judged by the Society to have passed the test for the way they used websites to publicise the results of the elections.Three quarters of county councils provided good information quickly about their election results and presented them in an easy-to-use and generally effective manner. All but one of the 34 councils had their results published by 9am on Saturday 7 May, with nearly two thirds reporting results as they came in.
The appointment of David Miliband as Minister for Communities and Local Government with a seat in the Cabinet has been welcomed by the Local Government Association. A spokesperson for the Association told Publicnet that the appointment is a clear indication that local government is being pushed up the agenda.The Association believes that there is now a real opportunity to press home the case for a return of power to local people. This means not just devolving decision making from Whitehall to the town halls through such developments as local area agreements, but involving people at the community level. This can be achieved through the existing structure of local government where councils will continue to develop their local leadership role. The government’s view of the importance of communities is made clear in the title of the new Minister’s post.
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