Last year's Young Foundation Paper, "Citizen Engagement and Accountability" strains to make a case for a future built on public involvement. It leaps, with hope in its heart, from a short stock-take on engagement (where the police receive most praise - there's another blog or two about that to come) to the critical factors which it suggests underpin successful engagement - political support, responsive organisational culture, clever use of tools and tactics and working with enthusiasts. The conclusion, tailored presumably to fit its client, the Department for Communities and Local Government, is that local government will only deliver if the starting point is that citizens already have power. Do they?  And isn't there something more practical?

If involvement is indeed to be one cornerstone of sustainable public services the agenda is different, in part a mirror image of the report.  Success will involve overcoming political resistance (or indifference), keeping tools and techniques fresh and smart and gathering a true evidence-base about why involvement delivers (or at least a compelling critical mass of cases). But the most important challenge facing involvement missed in the Young Foundation paper is also the most problematic.

Involvement has to be of direct and immediate relevance to non-enthusiasts.  Those advocating for involvement will have to be far more visible in achieving short-term change - an active, central, unequivocal contribution to doing more, better, for less. If involvement is relevant it has to address and lower the barriers to involvement amongst the sceptics and non-believers.

This requires involvement in practice, not involvement in theory - involvement which shapes investment and disinvestment decisions; which changes behaviour in measurable ways; which helps reshape services and facilities in tough environments.  The Young Foundation are right to see a pivotal problem in the medium-term being about how to turn likely mobilisation against change to positive support for change. The report would however be more convincing and worthwhile if it really made the case for relevance now. It is action at the hard end of the spectrum, alongside the disbelievers and sceptics, where the case has to be made and more work done.