Dragør Citizens’ Assembly – together for the welfare of the future

Across the Danish map, the same picture is emerging: We are getting older, and more children and young people need support. At the same time, expectations for the quality of municipal welfare services are growing. However, finances can struggle to keep up, and the challenges only look set to increase in the future. In the spring of 2025, Dragør’s municipal council invited 36 representative randomly drawn citizens to be co-developers of the municipality’s future welfare in Dragør Borgersamling. We Do Democracy was chosen as the third-party secretariat responsible for designing, recruiting and running Dragør Borgersamling.

Dragør Borgersamling was initiated with the aim of developing recommendations for the core task:

“We need the citizens’ assembly’s help to prioritize and balance the future welfare.“, with follow-up questions:

1. How do we involve citizens, associations and businesses in solving the welfare of the future and preserve our strong local communities?
2. How do we strengthen a vibrant local democracy and hold on to the good common conversation when we need to prioritize our welfare? Even when it’s difficult?

The Citizens’ Assembly was conducted in accordance with the OECD principles and an agreed mandate for how the Citizens’ Assembly recommendations would be handled politically and administratively after handover.

More than 240 citizens across Dragør signed up with the desire to be part of the citizen assembly’s work. Through a stratified draw among all interested parties, a stock cube was selected from Dragør’s population consisting of 36 representative citizens, measured by gender, age, education, place of residence and ownership.

Over five sessions, the members of the citizens’ assembly met and worked their way into the welfare area and towards some common priorities and balances. The sessions were held on weekdays after normal working hours and on Saturdays, where stakeholders across the entire municipality were also invited to contribute to the work at an Open Session. To give the citizens’ meeting the best conditions for answering the task, an expert advisor from VIVE contributed with a collection of material, and municipal and welfare experts presented fresh knowledge in presentations. The municipal council was invited to participate along the way to ensure an understanding of the challenges they face and to strengthen the anchoring of the recommendations after handover.

On August 28, the Dragør Citizens’ Assembly’s overall recommendation report was handed over to the municipal council. The work has resulted in a common vision and values for future welfare, as well as five thematic recommendations that together contain 24 proposals for welfare initiatives that can fulfill the direction the citizens point to. In the report, citizens give their recommendations on how to prioritize and balance the future economy, preventive efforts, greater co-creation, increased freedom of choice and the use of welfare technology.

Read Dragør Borgersamling’s full recommendation report here

The citizens have now finalized their recommendations to the municipal council, but that doesn’t mean the process is over. Now the political process begins.

At the handover, the oldest member of the civic assembly made a clear call to the politicians: “I’ve lived in Dragør for many years and followed both the ups and downs. In the citizens’ assembly, we’ve had the opportunity to talk openly about what works in the municipality – and what doesn’t. Now I hope that the municipal council will listen and take our input seriously .”

According to the mandate, citizens will receive feedback on the municipality’s work with recommendations after 3, 10 and 24 months after the launch. The feedback will be available at www.dragoer.dk.

The members’ evaluation of the citizens’ assembly shows, among other things, that:

• 100% have to a high or very high degree had a good experience participating in Dragør Borgersamling.
• 97% would recommend other citizens to join a citizens’ assembly.
• 89% feel that participating in the citizens’ assembly has strengthened their experience of being citizens of Dragør Municipality.