Herefordshire: The cost of sortition

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Yoram Gat

Christopher Baily, from Weston under Penyard, writes the following in a letter to the Hereford Times:

How much did Climate Assembly cost Herefordshire Council?

ACCORDING to the Herefordshire Council website the Herefordshire Citizens’ Climate Assembly discussed last month how Herefordshire should meet the challenges of climate change.

The people taking part were chosen from households invited to register their interest by an independent organisation called the Sortition Foundation, who were to make sure the final group represented the diversity of Herefordshire’s population.

On its website the Sortition Foundation says that together we can fix our broken politics.

May I ask whether David Hitchiner, the leader of the council for the past three years, subscribes to the view that our politics are in fact broken and, if so, what the council has been doing about it?

Perhaps he might also tell us, in the spirit of openness and accountability, how much of our money has been spent on engaging Sortition in this way, along with Impact Consultancy and Research and the Involve Foundation helping to run the assembly.

Disclosure of costs may be a rather trivial matter, and the obsession with this issue reflects the “broken politics” we are saddled with. But the issue of transparency around the application of sortition is crucial. Without transparency, it is easy to suspect that the whole process is being manipulated behind the scenes by established powers.

Filed under: Press, Sortition |

5 Responses

Chris Forman, on February 28, 2022 at 3:51 pm said:

If the politics are broken, the lead politician response to the question of whether they’re broken is probably going to be No, which would be a lie. If the politics aren’t broken, his answer would be No, which would be truthful. So his answer would be the same whether or not they were broken. So the answer from the politician contains no information. SF should write an article explaining the costs and how the process was conducted. It’s a great opportunity.

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Another round in the Hereford citizen assembly controversy | Equality by lot, on March 8, 2022 at 6:01 am said:

[…] A previous post mentioned a letter to the editor of the Hereford Times expressing objections and distrust of the process around the Herefordshire Citizens’ Climate Assembly and in particular asking what the cost of the process was. […]

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More criticism around the Herefordshire climate citizens assembly | Equality by lot, on March 13, 2022 at 6:57 am said:

[…] February 28th, a letter to the editor was published which asked David Hitchiner, Leader of the Herefordshire council, whether he endorses […]

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Sortition 2022 | Equality by lot, on December 21, 2022 at 4:47 am said:

[…] year, an allotted council on climate change in Herefordshire, UK generated a discussion about its cost as well as other aspects. A fairly prominent Australia politician, Vicotr Kline, wrote a strident […]

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Another Herefordshire citizen council letter to the editor | Equality by lot, on April 24, 2023 at 4:29 am said:

[…] Herefordshire citizen council for the climate has been the subject of a couple of critical letters to the editor of the Hereford Times last year. In a new letter, Frank Myers MBE […]

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