Citizens selected at random, representative of the population of West Yorkshire, serving for the same four year term as the mayor. The assembly meets monthly, first Saturday of the month. Assembly members are paid a modest "thank you" fee for each session they attend. The assembly advises the mayor and combined authority. The mayor commits to attending 9 of the 12 sessions per year.
Chance for the mayor and combined authority (which is a committee of the leaders of the five West Yorkshire councils) to listen to a representative group of citizens in a regular, structured way.
Paying members of the assembly a "thank you" fee, maybe £50 per session plus travel costs, means that civic institutions are more likely to listen to what the assembly recommends, if only in order to get their money's worth.
Members of the assembly become experts at what the mayor and combined authority are doing, and can share this expertise with people in their communities and areas of West Yorkshire. What benefits could this have?
What does "advise" mean? If the mayor and combined authority can ignore the advice of the assembly, will members get disillusioned and the whole thing seem like a waste of time?
There is a working example to learn from: https://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-democratic-experiment-citizens-assembly/ (the idea is based on this example, originally found by Ian Martin of Same Skies)
I love the idea to use the Citizens Assembly model. I worry that installing it on a fixed frequency risks losing, or at least watering-down a concentrated deliberative attention to a single problem. My preference is for the Mayor to use Citizens Assemblies and Citizens Juries proactively when needed or in response to public demand e.g. via petitions
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation