Redland City Council will consider adopting panels of randomly selected locals to review councillors’ plans and policies in a workshop later this year.
A report detailing the practice, known as citizen juries or community panels, in other local governments both in Australia and overseas will be commissioned after it was approved at the council’s meeting on Wednesday morning.
Made up of ratepayers and residents selected by lot and reflecting local demographics, the panels have been used as reference groups, advisors and even as reviewers of council decisions.
The most prominent Australian example happened in Melbourne last year, when the city’s council appointed 43 residents and businesses to its “People’s Panel” to make recommendations on a $5 billion, 10-year financial plan.
Closer to home, Noosa Council established a Community Jury to ponder questions of sustainability earlier this year.
The Redland report will not provide arguments for or against the program, but will instead show the “best practice” use of the initiative in other jurisdictions, and provide potential legal implications of setting up a local system.
Deputy mayor Alan Beard, who moved the motion calling for the report, said the idea caught his attention when he attended the Future of Local Government National Summit in Melbourne in May.
He stressed that while he did not consider himself a “convert” to the idea of adopting the panels, he was “interested enough and warmed enough to seek further information”.
“I know there’ll be a great deal of apprehension in the room from some of my fellow councillors... but I’m asking that we seek information on this possibility so we can have an informed discussion.”
Division 10 Councillor Paul Bishop, who also attended the Melbourne conference, said the panellists avoided the politics of promises to deliver “what is best for the community”.
“Time and time again they’ve found that what’s started out with what some councillors think is a magical mystery tour turns out to be the most robust, surprising [process] and… the results are extraordinary.”
The report will be provided to councillors ahead of a workshop in November. The investigation has a price ceiling of $10,000.
