Over at Lib Dem Voice Paul Walter has kicked off some debate about some of the party’s processes. While I don’t agree with some of what has been said, I do think there are some good points which should be considered.

Aaron pointed out that people who currently actually make party policy are only those who go to party conference, which many party members are unable to do. While I don’t think his characterisation of the people in the hall at conference as “mostly made up of career politicians and campaigners” is right, he is correct that only those present get a vote. However the problem is how you come up with an effective and fair system which is better. The internet is one obvious possibility, but I am not sure we are quite yet at a stage where actual decisions about what the party’s policies should be, can be made on the web.

There would also certainly be many who would oppose this - one of the strengths of the system of voting at conference is that it follows a debate which those voting have followed and been able to participate in. The tax debate at last autumn conference, for example, is often quoted as a good example of the system working well to allow party members to debate the issue fully, and then in the light of the points made, to make the decision. Also, every time anyone someone suggests using the internet more, the point is rightly made that many party members do not use the internet, so any system excludes somebody.

Personally I think that we’re not quite there yet with the technology on this, but I am certainly interested in keeping a very open eye on how options for involving people through the internet develops, and generally how we can involve party members more fully in developing policy.

(Incidentally it looks as though from next year, more of party conference will be moving to the weekend, to help those with difficulty taking time off work. This won’t solve the whole problem, or help those who are unable to come to conference for other reasons, but it is designed to help towards the objective of making it easier for more party members to contribute to policy-making.)

However I also want to throw the challenge back to party members to use the systems we already do have for contributing to policy-making. Liberal Democrat policy-making is done on a ‘deliberative’ model, which means that before any policy paper comes to conference, there is very extensive consultation within the party. This includes the working group producing a full consultation paper, which is published on the web each with its own discussion site, plus the option for any party member to write to the group giving their views, as well as various physical meetings such as at federal conference itself, but also often variously at regional conferences or local party formal or informal discussions.

This is a considerable range of opportunities to contribute. Has everyone who complains about lack of ability to contribute, taken up these options, and, for example, commented on the discussion websites for each policy working group?

The point has also been well made that every local party does send voting reps to conference, and if people want to contribute views then they should do so to their local reps - or try and become one. There is a system in place and we should use it (perhaps part of the reason people don’t is because they don’t know about it/understand it.)

However if anyone has any actual real proposals for how we can do more than this to engage party members in policy-making then certainly I personally would be very keen to look at them.

And I do think it’s also just worth a mention again that we do have a far more inclusive policy-making process than the Conservatives or Labour. We are the only one of the three major parties where real party members do get the opportunity to make the decisions on policy, and we do have a very extensive consultation process for anyone to feed into, before it reaches decision-making time at conference. And even at conference there is of course the opportunity to amend the policy - the Trident decision was given as an example: it was entirely open to anyone to put forward an amendment in that debate following the online discussion you had, and two (I think) amendments were moved in the debate. (I do accept that someone does have to be present at the conference to present them but then again if not one of the 2000-odd people at spring conference were willing to propose it then it probably doesn’t have terribly wide support).

I’m afraid I really don’t agree with Dan’s characterisation of the Federal Policy Committee! FPC is certainly not perfect but it is definitely not made up of academics (I think probably one of its 29 current members counts as an academic, but she is also an executive member of a council we control). It is, as others have said, made up of activists elected by conference, together with some MPs and one or two others. A week ago today this FPC member was knocking on doors talking to real voters in Ealing!

FPC also stands accused of ‘defending its ludicrous expert status like a medieval princelet’ - in fact one of FPC’s key roles is ensuring policy making is NOT too dominated by experts. And FPC is certainly always very aware that anything it proposes will have to be approved by conference (and its members are strongly committed to that principle).

And as someone else said, if you don’t agree with it then stand for it - I don’t mean that just flippantly, but really - do stand.

Personally I do wonder about the level of detail that our policy papers go into, and I certainly have sympathy with the point about us having too much detail generally, as I set out some time ago. However on the other hand, if we are going to bother setting out our policies, then it does need to contain some detail, and they certainly do need to add up and be credible documents. The example quoted of a line on sentencing wasn’t a problem with language - it’s the position we decided to take. Obviously it’s possible to disagree with position if you like but it was a decision, not an accident of language. The same point applies to other similar cases: the proposal for licensing goldfish was in one of our papers: I actually argued against it, but was defeated.

I do also agree that we need to look at what we expect of party members. People join because they agree with our viewpoint and our policies, and we then too often treat them as if they joined because they wanted to be part of a cult of delivering leaflets. Campaigning is important - I disagree with some disparaging comments made about politicians who just wanting to get elected: there’s no point having principles if you never have any chance of implementing them.

But we do need to find ways to engage members more in discussion and policy. As I say, if anyone has any concrete proposals for how we can do that, while retaining an accountable and representative way of making policy, then I would very much encourage them to put them forward (as I did in a pamphlet a couple of years ago).