Care about improving local democracy, citizen participation, and how decisions are made by local government? Do you have insights into what is already working well, or what the challenges are? Then this event is for you.

We're looking to pull together people from right across the landscape of local democracy - including citizens, community and voluntary sector organisations, elected representatives, those who work within local authorities, and those who work in democracy and tech - to help inform the beginnings of the Public Square programme and influence the direction we take.

Public Square is a collaboration between The Democratic Society and mySociety, and is funded by Luminate. Over the next two years, we'll be running a programme of research and action to push forward participation in local government across the UK. We will be working closely with councils, communities and citizens across the country to learn what’s needed to take participation further, and we’ll be prototyping openly available tools, techniques and approaches to fill these needs - building upon what already exists as far as possible.

We know there are already loads of people interested in the broad topic of local democracy, and trying to increase participation in local governments and decision-making in many different ways. We want the work we do to be informed by the expertise and insights already out there - and that’s the purpose of this event. We'll be asking attendees to share good examples of what's already going on, and working together explore the challenges that remain and what is needed to make participation easier and more meaningful.

So join us - and lets work together to improve citizen participation in local democracy.

If you have questions about the organisations or the project please see our website thepublicsquare.org.uk or get in touch with us at team@thepublicsquare.org.uk You can also follow us at: @PublicSquareUK

We want this event to accessible to all. We are able to support the costs of a number of individuals and small organisations to attend, so if you need help with the costs involved in order to take part, or if you have accessibility needs that we should be aware of, please contact us at team@thepublicsquare.org.uk.