Glad it was help. Think what a local authority or Local Strategic Partnership could do with this sort of publicly available information. It could first of all understand the sort of social capital in its wealthier areas and then, having benchmarked that level of local social capital for its area, it can then survey its poorer postcodes and understand better the difference between them and the work it needs to do there to improve them. Combine this free information with a purchase of a databse like Mosaic, which would give you a more scientific benchmark, and LSP partners can do very targeted local interventions at postcode level. As well as local authorities and LSP's, MP's and Councillors could use the free postcode data to build much better pictures of their locality for their own community engagement. I am sure if this is combined with the socio-political influencer toolkit we are developing, TCC could develop a useful methodology for LSP targeted intervention work.

I very much agree. Some of the community cohesion work that TCC has done for local authorities has been in 1930's terraces. This is also an area where a pilot scheme to create a geographical social network to bring disparate communities more together might might be worth exploring.

Thanks for your comments. I think that this is a fair point. I imagine the general public will not differentiate between live streamed content and on-demand content. In addition I imagine technology will make the difference just look like the click of a different button. I hope there is space for both and that we see a general expansion of websites or internet TV stations to encourage a greater range of debate. One area I think we will soon see a significant expansion is the uploading of do it yourself campaign videos as entry costs are tumbling with video cameras able to upload to youtube at under £30 nowadays and mobile phone video technology improving all the time. The next general election in 2009? will no doubt see a significant expansion in this area.

This issue received a good write up in the Guardian today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2123256,00.html

The full speech is now available at at: http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1002882&PressNoticeID=2453 It has some good points to make on: - Local Area Agreements - Community ownership of assets - Participatory budgets It covers less on devolution to local government from central government, though my own view is LAA's will allow a flexible devolution to occur on an authority by authority basis. However Gordon Brown's speech on Tuesday made reference to a clearer settlement between central and local government and so I think both speeches should be taken together as setting out a triple devolutionary process.

Hazel Blears is a former Councillor and former local government employee. As the Guardian interview of yesterday indicated she sees the devolution of powers as a redefinition of local government's role rather than a diminuation of powers. Local Government has continually evolved from providing health and utility services to, for example, taking a leading role in driving up recycling rates to promotion and now enforcement in areas such as healthy living. I don't think it has anything to fear from these proposals. Indeed this is likely to be a rare opportunity for it as long as it recognises there are demands below it as well as rightly making demands itself to government. I was a Councillor for 20 years and think the Councillor's role as a community champion has always been massively under funded in comparison to regulatory, executive and more recently scrutiny roles. I have no doubt Local Councillors, will take a leading role in any community initiatives such as sitting on the boards managing locally owned assets and expressing a view on any local ballots. If there is any threat at all, it is to those remaining over centralised local authorities who have yet to disaggregate their budgetary spend and have resisted empowering Councillors in their community champion role!

Andrew's comments are very helpful. I think this is a role for all types of backbench Councillor, whether in adminstration or opposition. Ward Councillors already stand up for their local communities at meetings. This is an opportunity for them to be seen as strengthening their local communities by giving them an actual stake in the local facilities.

I think a variant of this was used by the Department of Health for debating national health priorities in the last year. Deliberative Forums sound like a larger version of Citizen's Juries and seem to be an excellent addtion to the range of community engagement tools as they can combine consensus processes wit the need for identifying priorities. I think the key thing is to use a range of tools such as them, opinion polls, focus groups and surveys etc and not just rely on any one. The issues to be covered at the forum are very important. "Contracts" whether implied or actual are an increasing aspect of an evolving more complex society, so a debate on how they operate is really important.

Had a quick look. It looks really good. All of the key themes seem to have an underlying requirement for good feedback mechanisms, so an organisation can adapt to changing needs. A communal Blog such as this one may well be a good tool for this.

This work with the SDP is now featured in an article in the latest issue of Globus Magazine in Croatia.

The idea of getting members of opposing political parties to be guests at each others Christmas Parties is a very friendly gesture. In Britain it would be akin to the Christmas Day 1914 truce. It might even be a positive contribution to healthy living as members of one party may not want to be seen drinking to excess in front of one of their opponents, even with the protection of any agreed "Chatham House Rules" for these events!

Having looked at the link, I think the figures are pretty good in view of the previous situation where any choice was underplayed by GP's. Patients Choice will develop further as people get used to the concept. I think the issues of timing and convenience will be the strongest factors in driving patient choice forward.

Indeed it was really terrible that he was never finally brought to justice. In time his most important legacy may be his arrest in Britain and the Law Lords ruling that he was accountable for his crimes and as a head of state did not have immunity. This really was a major change in international law. For an interesting study of this, and the fact that Iranian law students study it in great detail, it is well worth reading the relevent chapter in "Lawless World" by Phillipe Sands.

As well as a personal commitment to recycling, the other part of the pledge should be to encourage 5 other people to increase their level of recycling. I think that would be very TCC!