What I (nearly) said at Government 2010
As trailed, here come the notes of my contribution to the discussion about e-consultation at Government 2010 last Thursday.
The session’s title was “Digital engagement is everyone’s job: formal and informal consultation online” and also on the panel were Harry Metcalfe (Dextrous Web), David Price (Debategraph) and Kate Davies from YouGov (ably replacing Tom Watson at the 11th hour).
What follows are my speaking notes pretty much unedited, including the bits I didn’t quite manage to say. As you’d expect the more inspiring stuff came out during the audience Q&A, so if this post piques your interest you might want to check out the ensuing debate in the footage when it’s uploaded or get a flavour from the live blog.
Edit: Harry’s now also written up his reflections here and the video has been posted. Here it is:
My perspective
- In the past 5-6 years, I’ve spent a fair bit of time at the coal face trying to help ministers, policymakers and govt comms folk engage their internal and external audiences using digital tools; from launching the first cabinet minister blog for David Miliband in 2005 to writing that 20 page (~259 tweet) strategy for how to engage via Twitter.
- Digital engagement is (still) currently being driven primarily by teams like mine. We act as ambassadors for gov 2.0 and do stuff like setting up tools and supporting civil servants in using them (e.g. we help the Perm Sec at BIS run an intranet blog to inspire and consult staff; we helped the low carbon business opportunities team seek views on a vision document by running a commentable version online; and so on)
The vision
Digital engagement/consulting online should be part of everyone’s job, because:
- Conversations about government policy can’t be delegated. When opening up a dialogue with citizens it needs to be a genuine opportunity to influence decision makers. That means ministers, senior officials, not web teams.
- People are having useful discussions about issues of govt policy right now, and ignoring them is riskier to reputation than joining in. So PR folk, stakeholder managers and officials need to monitor and join in, not web teams.
- There’s just no excuse any more not to seek or check people’s views before making a decision that affects their lives. Digital tools now make it easy; people expect their views to be heard almost regardless of where they post them. Govt needs to wake up to this, and fast. That sort of change needs to come from everyone, not web teams.
The reality
- People have jobs already. Busy ministers and officials can be forgiven for thinking it’s my job and that of my team to communicate online for them. Challenge is to understand their world, the pressures they’re under, the things they want to achieve, and show how digital can help them do that quicker/better.
- Expectations need managing about the work involved and likely return. Evidence base is nascent, success is not a given, online is not a panacea to take the pain out of consulting. Build it and they might come, but only if you promote it. Quality and quantity of response varies. Vocal minority can flood a discussion and silent majority may never be heard. How do you filter the noise? How to you close the feedback loop?
- We are some considerable way off this being everyone’s job. Whitehall still runs on paper. Traditional consultation methods still work, still need doing, especially in context of digital inclusion. Online is additional, not alternative, and therefore seen as a luxury and comes at a cost.
The future
- If people don’t know it’s their job already they will soon – it’s not going away. Digital engagement roles/teams like the ones at BIS can be found in a handful of other central govt depts. The Director for Digital Engagement, Andrew Stott, is driving this at high level from Cabinet Office. Pincer move of bottom up and top down forces driving a culture change.
- Demand is now loud and clear, and if govt doesn’t open up discussions others will force it upon them. The Writetoreply commentable remix of the Digital Britain interim report was one example of this. [Later in the conference, Tom Steinberg spoke about MySociety's Fix My Street, Write To Them, and Harry's Tell Them What You Think etc. which are the classic examples of this in action].
- But what we need to do is avoid the temptation just to evangelise at events like this and focus instead on how to integrate/embed into business of government. Need to ensure it’s authentic consultation, real engagement, with clear and focused objectives and clarity around what difference citizen participation is going to make.
- Ends -
Thanks to insightful questions from a savvy audience, the discussion which followed touched on all the issues the panel hoped it might, including:
- the need for root and branch culture change and the role internal collaboration can play in accelerating that
- the value and meaning of the word ‘consultation’ itself when it’s primarily govt asking all the the questions (this is what we think, do you agree? / thanks but we’ll do it anyway)
- what role technology might need to play in filtering and structuring mass conversations – which to me seems the bleeding edge for this stuff right now, and an area which is showing some promising innovation.
I got a great deal out of being part of this discussion, not to mention the rest of the event. Thanks again to Jeff, Harry and Steph for the opportunity.
Image credit: Slim Jim
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Comments
great blogpost to match the great speech you gave. I hope the officials listen.
Speaking as one of the ‘vocal minority’ it is difficult not to flood conversations when you realise nobody is saying what needs to be said. As more people get online and start using these tools it is crucial for ministers to be able to understand and use them. Currently the only people who are engaging with joe public are the web teams, and as you say, IT isn’t their job…
…I repeat, I hope they listen to you.
Good luck, you are doing a great job.
chris
[...] What I (nearly) said at Government 2010 – "As trailed, here come the notes of my contribution to the discussion about e-consultation at Government 2010 last Thursday." [...]
Hello, I'm Neil Williams. I'm a government web geek, a dad, a husband, a grower of veg, a keeper of hens and a lapsed comedy writer, roughly in that order. 
Interesting reading Neil. Good that this being driven forward. A key challenge will be altering the mindset of officials focussing them on dialogue with ‘real people’ in the outside world, as opposed to ‘just performing a function’ in the civil service. Managing the dialogue & robust decision-making also enter the frame – interpretation of response thru this channel needs to be smart & followed up appropriately.