Public participation is not new. There were attempts to promote local involvement in
planning decisions in the UK as long ago as the 1960s. User involvement has long been a
feature of some social services, and ‘community involvement’ is a pre-condition of funding
from most UK and EU regeneration programmes. Until relatively recently, though, many
mainstream services remained under the control of expert professionals who, it was
assumed, acted in the best interests of service users and the public at large. Voters could
remove unpopular politicians through the ballot-box, but they were not expected to take
much of a direct interest in policy debates or the management of public services between
elections.