The housing crisis. Soaring food and energy bills. Climate breakdown. You don’t have to look far John to see that our current economic and political system isn’t working for most people. 

A big part of the problem is the way policies currently get decided. Right now a tiny group of people from a narrow set of backgrounds decide on policies for the rest of us to follow. We believe for politics to really serve people like us - it has to include people like us. It’s clear our political system needs updating, so last year we decided to try something a bit different…

In the autumn of 2022, Positive Money partnered with Cheshire East Council to officially form the first ever Cheshire East People’s Panel on the Cost of Living. We brought together 21 residents from Crewe, Macclesfield and various towns, villages and hills in between, and from a range of ages and backgrounds to run an inclusive democratic process. 

For this process, we adopted the principles of a citizens’ assembly and selected our panel a bit like a jury. Guided by an expert facilitator over two weekends, members heard from experts on the cost of living crisis, shared their personal experiences, deliberated ideas and in the end developed 12 policy recommendations for the Council to enact that they felt would benefit the whole community. 

Of the 12 recommendations, the Council determined that they could enact five of them, five were already underway, and two could not be taken forward. Then in March 2023, at the Council’s Corporate Policy Committee meeting, the Council staff’s proposals were unanimously accepted by all Councillor’s present (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent councillors) - which was a fantastic result. We’re also pleased to report that the Councillors have committed to doing more participatory engagement with their residents in the future - another very positive outcome!

John, Positive Money was thrilled to bring this project to life, because doing democracy better is a vital first step in achieving the radical systems change we’re fighting for.

There’s appetite for more projects like this one - in this year’s supporter survey when asked if Positive Money should support more types of participatory democracy projects like this an overwhelming 78% said Yes.

Positive Money relies on donations from generous individuals to do the work we do. Please John, will you make a donation today to help us explore more opportunities for citizens to learn about and shape our economy?

Alongside sounding the alarm about the big issues we’re facing, we need to get out there and help build the solutions - together. Because as citizens, we all have a right and responsibility to contribute to the big decisions to determine where we’re heading next. 

Empowering everyone to learn and debate new ideas to push policy-makers into action is a core value at the heart of Positive Money’s work - and hopefully this exciting experiment is just the start.

Find out more about the Cheshire East People’s Panel here and if you can John, please make a donation today to support more exciting projects like this in the future.

Thanks so much for your support,

Rachel Oliver

Director of Public Engagement, Positive Money

Positive Money relies on donations from generous individuals like you to carry out our research, education work and campaign for a fairer money and banking system.
Please will you make a secure donation now so together we can win sooner?

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