This may have been pragmatic and I can see the argument for suggesting some "quick wins.

But I still think that without fundamental change you are just tinkering around at the edges.

Webcasting council meetings, using social media, and so on are all good suggestions but will not solve the problem in themselves.

Regular readers will know my almost evangelical zeal for councillors using blogs and twitter to engage with voters, but they cannot be the solutions to all the problems.

Among the 26 recommendations another that stands out is banning jargon in council reports (excellent recommendation - and future blog post to come on that).

Another good recommendation is to hold quarterly executive member question time meetings.

The unstated truth in the report is that local councils don't want TOO much contact with residents (stakeholders in council language, although that phrase also includes other agencies like police, fire brigade, etc). And indeed nor would it be desirable.

Councils, in some ways should be like emergency services, available when needed providing a good service.

Where many councils can and should improve is the experience when people make contact or need that help.

In that sense the commission is bob on the money, access to decision making needs to be improved as suggested (social media, internet, meetings out in the community etc).

And council reports need to be simplified, written in language that the man in the street can understand without a jargon busting dictionary.

But ultimately one of the main problems with local democracy is that it does not excite enough people, and without fundamental change it will not.

An elected mayor would reinvigorate local politics. I know neither Labour or the Liberal Democrats want one for Liverpool.

I know there are cases of it being a disaster (my home town Doncaster is a case in point). But look at the interest in local politics it has created in places like Hartlepool or London.

Of course this then becomes personality politics, but that is the world we now live in.