NPF Report – Being the Doctor

This weekend, the National Policy Forum convened for the first time as a whole since this group was elected last year. Two years ago, that opening sentence might have been the start of a litany of complaint. But now, it absolutely is not. The NPF is changing and growing into a new role – or at least a new understanding of its old role. These mass meetings are great and an important part of the policy making process, but with Labour’s embrace of open platforms through initiatives like Your Britain and the development that every single NPF member now sits on a policy commission these meetings no longer feel like the only chance for us elected representative to engage.

And that’s a very good thing.

That is not to say that this weekend’s meeting was not important – far from it. We had speeches from both Ed’s setting the tone of the debate. Talking about fiscal responsibility and the importance of being aware of the neglected state George Osborne will have left the economy in by 2015. It will be this group’s job – through the Warwick process – to make some of these difficult choices. The ground was clearly being prepared for that. But we also got so much more.

Under Angela Eagle, the NPF has developed a new sense of self confidence and a real zest for outreach. One session – for which I was delighted to be on the panel – was about best practice in engaging – with communities and CLP members alike. A session that a few years ago might easily have become a moaning session about all that is wrong with the Party and our processes was instead a really positive sharing of great ideas and energy.

Another innovation was the Shadow Cabinet speed dating session, where anyone could take a policy idea and pitch it to up to eight Shadow Cabinet members. It was fun, high-energy and gave us a chance for some really focused time to pursue pet projects outside of the strictures of the specific policy paper discussions.

The only fly in the ointment was with the policy papers themselves. Largely these were the right length and contained enough detail to make for an interesting discussion. But they had all been narrowed down to a couple of rather odd either/or options most of which seemed complimentary rather than contradictory – so frequently, the choice became “a bit of both please”.

It did occur to me that these options were there to assess our priorities in a fiscally limited world – so for example, the choice in the Better Politics paper between a focus on citizenship education in schools or on volunteering and youth groups. But when I asked if that were the case I was assured it wasn’t. In which case the obvious answer to that question is both.

But that is a niggle – and a hangover perhaps from an old way of presentation that hasn’t quite disappeared yet. Overall the whole weekend felt positive and hopeful. Newly elected Vice Chair Billy Hayes said in the best practice session, that we had to stop being a patient describing what was wrong and start being a doctor – describing how it can be fixed. I feel that the NPF is on its way to graduating medical school this weekend. It’s been a long journey, but we really are developing a policy process that might just work for members and the leadership in the 21^st century.