Welfare citizen gathering in Greve

The country’s municipalities are looking into a future where they cannot afford the level of welfare we have today, but where citizens’ expectations on most parameters remain the same.
The expectation gap between what citizens expect and what the municipality can deliver will only widen in the years ahead.
Rather than wait and watch a downward spiral, Greve City Council took the decision to act proactively on the challenge Greve City Council wants citizens’ input on how the future welfare should be, how we find the balance in future welfare and how we have the difficult conversations locally.
Therefore, the city council decided to set up the country’s first municipal welfare citizen gathering, where representative selected citizens across Greve would discuss and make recommendations for the future welfare in Greve Municipality.

The Citizens’ Assembly in Greve was conducted in the spring of 2024 based on the OECD principles with an agreed mandate for how the Citizens’ Assembly recommendations would be handled politically and administratively afterwards.
364 citizens signed up and wanted to be part of the citizens’ assembly’s work.
By stratified draw among all interested parties, 36 representative citizens were selected.
The draw took into account that the members reflected the diversity of Greve Municipality’s geography, education, age and gender.
The citizen assembly was launched with the core task: “We need your help to envision the future of welfare in Greve Municipality” The work in the citizens’ assembly was supported by an expert group and carried out in collaboration with Komponent – Kommunernes Udviklingscenter.
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.
The city council was also invited along the way – to ensure early localization of the political challenges and at the same time ensure links to the subsequent political decision.

The members of the Citizens’ Assembly came up with an overall welfare vision and guiding principles for future welfare in Greve in the future – as well as 5 main recommendations, under which a number of welfare initiatives were identified, including a focus on increased use of welfare technology and the involvement of civil society actors in Greve in future welfare.
The citizens’ assembly identified new paths to take in the future of welfare with an eye for finding the balance and moving away from the notion that everyone should have an equal right to everything all the time.
Adaptations can be made and tasks can be left to those who are able and willing.
In addition to recommendations, the members issued a clear call to the politicians: “We cannot solve the welfare of the future in the same way as today. We give the politicians in Greve our support to try new approaches and set new priorities for the welfare of the future” Read the final recommendations of the Welfare Citizens’ Assembly here

The overall recommendations of the citizens’ assembly were handed over to the city council in June 2024.
Greve City Council will, in continuation of the mandate for the citizens’ assembly, give the first feedback on the recommendations in the fall of 2024 – and again after 12 months.
The members’ evaluation of the citizens’ assembly shows, among other things:

• 87% would recommend other citizens to join a citizens’ assembly
• 64% feel that participating in a citizen assembly has strengthened their experience of being citizens of Greve Municipality
• 67% gained a better understanding of others’ opinions on welfare – than their own
• 78% felt that the final recommendations reflected the diversity of the citizens in the group
• 75% would implement the recommendations themselves if they were the elected decision makers