Conditions for influence within PTPP

Control or responsibility for transport decision making occurred more frequently in processes where local government had a clear mandate, either in terms of direct political support (e.g. the Leicester Forums) or in terms of support from senior local government officials (e.g. the CCAG and CCSM). Participants in the independent groups (e.g. MK BUG) were able exert influence in the form of control over the structure and actions of their own processes. In the Leicester Bus User Panel, the assistant mayor was able to use their authority to exert some pressure on officers to act on participants’ concerns, typically by using light- hearted humour so as to not undermine the officers in a public forum.

The likelihood that involvement and input in discussions led to influence taking place tended to reflect the relationship between the participant and the relevant decision maker (Bourdieu, 1986). This approach to influence tended to be used more frequently by informal leaders and expert participants. Participants in MK BUG were able to use persuasion as a form of influence when working with MK Council because of the respective strengths and abilities of expert participants. Local government officers and members also used PTPP to highlight ongoing consultation (e.g. the Belgrave Road scheme in Leicester). However, influence was quite hard to demonstrate in these instances (see Chapter 8) because the feedback on how any consultation influenced the outcomes was very unclear. The challenge of getting feedback to participants is a common problem in PTPP because it is difficult to establish a causal link between individual contributions and transport outcomes. The CCAG met more frequently (monthly) this enabled them to cover proposals in more detail (sometimes even holding extra meetings or site visits to focus on specific schemes). This process facilitated much clearer feedback loops as a result (Parker and Street, 2018).

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Case study processes that used compromise and coalitions to achieve influence were most effective when participants shared common interests or were members of the same interest group (like the local cycling campaigns in Leeds and Leicester). Adversarial approaches provided fewer opportunities and tended to occur when participants felt like there input was being ignored, frustrated or that they were suffering from a perceived injustice (e.g. the ongoing opposition within MK DAG had to MK Council’s management of community transport). The success of an adversarial approach is more dependent upon participants ability to politicise their activities by generating opposition (e.g. via local and social media) or increasing awareness beyond the group itself (as discussed Interviewee 6). Legacy’s (2017) paper on the role of the Public Transport Users Association and other advocacy and community groups in Melbourne is an excellent illustration of the success of this approach.

Within the PTPP observed in this study there were opportunities for softer forms of influence by gaining the support or commitment of leaders and decision makers (McAndrews and Marcus, 2015). For example, the chair of the Leicester Bus User Panel agreed with other participants about the need to update out of date information on all bus stops. However, the realities of budgetary pressures, the slow pace of change in local government, staffing cuts over previous years and the need to prioritise meant that it wasn’t always a guarantee that the officers involved would be able to deal with every request. In general, the more political/professional responsibility an individual had for a given outcome, the more meaningful the support or commitment from the perspective of achieving influence. Another example of this related to the credibility of MK BUG participants’ contributions to the local authority’s review of bus subsidies. Their contribution was enhanced by their use of data (including first-hand surveys and calculations of subsidies per passenger to highlight areas where it was important for the local authority to continue to support bus services). In the Leicester Cycle City Forum, CCAG and CCSM photographic evidence provided by participants was used to highlight problems with existing infrastructure or to highlight enforcement issues (e.g. parking on the cycle superhighway).

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Support and commitment on the part of local government was not a given in the case study processes observed. Whilst some groups had very clear political support (the Leicester forums and the Cross Gates Forum), other groups struggled to gain similar commitments. An example of this was the ongoing problems MK DAG had in getting the Council’s elected portfolio holder for equality and disability services to attend their meetings. The reasons given by the elected member were usually based on work commitments or a desire to remain politically neutral from the process (even though it was set up and funded by the council). In the Cross Gates Forum, a transport officer from Leeds City Council was often unable to attend the meetings. This meant that information and feedback relating to ongoing works on Austhorpe Road had to go through the chair of the forum instead (as a third-party). The MK DAG transport sub-group had a very good working relationship with the taxi licensing officer, but given his own junior position, he wasn’t always able to commit to making policy changes even if he supported participants’ suggestions in principle.

The PTPP observed also suffered from a lack of influence when the pace of change was too slow (such as when trying to feed into the implementation of real time bus information in Leicester) or the group appeared to be ignored (such as when public members of the LDCSC tried to lobby First Bus to make their new LCD screens on the front of buses more readable). Some participants felt that processes were tokenistic as a result particularly when they had constantly seen a lack of positive change over time (Interview 11). Multiple participants reported the same problems repeatedly in all three of the ‘bus user groups’ observed in Leeds, Leicester and Milton Keynes.

A lack of continuity altered the momentum and ‘group’ memory of some of the processes observed. Changes which had an impact on continuity included: changing leadership (the Leicester forums), rotating leadership (LDCSC), a high turnover of attendees (the City Connect groups), and the loss of the co-chair and a high absence rate of regular attendees (MK DAG Transport Sub-Group). These fluctuations in continuity had a negative impact on the ability of these processes

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to influence transport decisions because the networks and communication channels involved were disrupted (Chapter 7).

As outlined in section 6.7.1, bypassing was used by some participants to create alternative channels of communication (i.e. extra contact) between participants and leaders outside of the PTPP themselves. In other cases, this meant using alternative channels and connections to meet relevant decision makers who weren’t otherwise accessible to them via the PTPP observed (i.e. new contact). Meeting participants outside of the meeting in this way was sometimes for managing problems with the PTPP themselves:

“[there are] things that I can do as a suppose a kind of pollinating insect, rather than having the conversations in the room, [as] it can become slightly adversarial sometimes” (Interview 2)

As demonstrated by the quote from interviewee 2, opportunities to bypass the process (Hillier, 2000) were sometimes desired by both participants and decision makers that they were looking to influence.