Seven ways your council can boost local democracy today

It's easy for discussions on democracy to end up in the theoretical. Visions of the future of democracy, from the Adam Smith Institute to Occupy, seek fundamental shifts in how society and public services are organised. We need visionaries, but we also need action; the reality of change is that lots of little actions drive new attitudes. So in that vein, here are seven small things that you can do to improve local democracy in your area. 1. Check out a hyperlocal website or Facebook page Every councillor worth their salt reads the local paper every day, but there's more and varied comment and opinion online. A little digging will get you past the angry ranters to the quality content. 2. Seed a surgery Social media surgeries are simple and very cheap peer-to-peer learning networks, which improve democracy by building people's capacity to contribute. You don't need anything more than a cafe with wi-fi, your laptop and a couple of friends. 3. Find your positive deviants Look out for them both inside and outside your organisation. When people want to do something positive and participatory, they don't always call it democracy. The growing CityCamp network , started in the US and now established here , is one example, but there will be people in your area with the energy and drive to make things change. Find them online and help them create. 4. Put openness at the heart of organisational development In a council, everyone works in democratic services. Increasingly they will work in localised and personalised services too. Staff and councillors need to have the new skills that this new way of working needs. You might not be the head of human resources, but you can put those skills into you and your team's development plans. 5. Call a public service partner Talk to your partners about their consultation and engagement plan, and whether you can join your engagement work with theirs. Citizens don't usually care about organisational boundaries and the most dispiriting experience is making a comment and being told "oh, that's not an issue for us". 6. Be a confused citizen Check out a local newspaper websaite for an area where you don't live, and pick out a news story that involves the council. Then go to the council's website and try to find information about the issue (beyond a press release). It will teach you some lessons about how it feels to be a democratic participant in your area. 7. Check the quality of your information Hierarchies are turning into networks everywhere you look, and the website is no exception. Homepage and directories are being replaced by Facebook page and Twitter lists. That means the content your organisation creates needs to be simple, self-contained and linkable – not PDFs hidden in a database. Check the information you're responsible for. Does it meet that standard? You can probably run through that whole list in a lunch break without any technical skill or organisational superpower required. If a few more people in government took little positive actions like that every day, we'd soon have a better relationship between state and citizen, and better democracy. Anthony Zacharzewski is director of the Democratic Society This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Join the local government network for news, views and the latest jobs direct to you