The overall objective of the final assignment is:
To design a theoretical citizen engagement
initiative to improve policymaking and/or public service delivery in your local
community, city or country, and then to creatively express how this might look
in the real world through the creation of a digital artefact.
1. What are you trying to achieve?
In UK local politics, elected representatives
regularly make decisions on a range of issues. Some decisions are made following
public consultations (normally organised by the local council). Elected
representatives are presented with the outcome of the consultation and are then
expected to vote on the decision. My initiative is to produce a set of
questions that elected representatives could use when considering public
consultations. The aim would be to improve policymaking by empowering elected
representatives to demand better public consultations to inform their
decisions. I have adapted the participatory design elements and propositions
identified in the paper “Putting
the “Public” Back in Public Values Research: Designing Participation to
Identify and Respond to Values” (Nabatchi 2012) into seven questions. The
questions could be promoted online to raise awareness, with the ability for
interested people to download their own version. The questions could also be
used by civil society groups to give positive feedback to those bodies
organising public consultations, to improve the quality of future
consultations.
2. Who are the
key players?
The promoter of the initiative would be one of the various local government
think tanks in the UK. The questions could be used as part of a larger campaign
for improving local government generally, improving the planning process, or
improving the effectiveness of local councillors. The initial target audience would be elected representatives on the
Planning Committee of each local authority. They could be recruited through the
Local Government Association (http://www.local.gov.uk/), a politically-led, cross-party organisation that works on behalf of
local councils. An alternative route would be through the political parties
that they belong to (e.g. Association of Labour Councillors http://lgalabour.local.gov.uk/alc).
3.
How does it work?
The
initiative is simply to provide a set of questions for elected representatives
to use when discussing public consultations. It is then up to the
representatives to decide the appropriate time to ask the questions and how to
respond to the answers. The questions would be hosted online, ideally on
websites belonging to a range of organisations (both political organisations
and civil society organisations). The questions could also be included in
newsletters, magazines or other documents that are sent to elected
representatives. Wherever the questions are available, there should also be an
opportunity for the elected representative to give some feedback.
4. What are the risks and opportunities?
The main risk is that the initiative is ignored by the elected
representatives, either by not being aware of its existence or not thinking
that the questions are useful. A communication strategy would minimise the risk
of lack of awareness. The usefulness of the questions should be tested in advance
in a pilot study. The questions should be presented to a small group of elected
representatives from a range of councils and of different political parties,
and asking for feedback. This could be either a virtual or face-to-face event.
The opportunities that could be leveraged to maximise the potential of the
initiative include it being included as part of a national campaign by a civil
society group with an interest in planning (e.g. the Campaign to Protect Rural
England http://www.cpre.org.uk/) or
organisations for elected representatives (e.g. the
Local Government Association (http://www.local.gov.uk/).
5. How will you know if it is successful?
The success of the initiative could be measured in two dimensions:
awareness and usefulness. The first dimension would be the awareness of the
questions by the elected representatives. This could be measured directly (by
surveying the elected representatives) or indirectly (e.g. measuring the number
of downloads). The usefulness of the questions could be measured in the short
term (did they help the representative when they were discussing the
consultation?) and in the medium term (did using the questions improve
subsequent consultations?). After the short term feedback, the questions could
be revised to improve their usefulness.
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