Who's listening to the people?

After yesterday's paean to localism and citizen empowerment by Gordon Brown, today there's a chance to learn what it's like on the ground.

I'm chairing the national conference on community land trusts, which New Start magazine is staging in partnership with Community Finance Solutions at Salford University. After many years of slog, the first community land trusts in England are up and running and more than 150 homes have now been built. Not many, but every one of them speaks of the effort and aspiration of local people.

You'd have thought, given their aspirations, that ministers would be keen to support - and learn from - community land trusts. And, to be fair, there have been steps in that direction. But the current iteration of localism apparently doesn't go as far as enabling a minister, or even a civil servant, to make a five-minute trip from Whitehall to say a few encouraging words at a national event that showcases local action. Instead it's the opposition that's making the running.

Ministers have many calls on their time, and their average day probably isn't too far from the caricature portrayed by the TV series The Thick of It. So we can live with their absence from a conference. What's telling, though, is the contrast between their willingness to tour TV studios and attend stage-managed photo ops, and the reluctance to sit and listen to people who've put years of their life into creating solutions that meet local needs.

• There'll be more from the conference here later, and also at New Start magazine, and on Twitter (search for #clt09)