Recommendations
The research team behind this report has now completed two phases of Digital Dialogues to date, has extensive experience of working with both Parliament and local government on related initiatives, and has consulted with experts in other fields, such as education, science and commerce.
On these bases, the Digital Dialogues team would like to put forward the following 10 recommendations of how the UK’s central government could proceed with its aim of getting the most from the engagement opportunities presented to it by digital information and communications technologies:
1. Innovate… Government needs a culture of innovation in lots of areas of its work, but particularly in relation to how it engages with the public. Investing in innovation will help government to learn, make informed decisions and motivate the public to interact with its agencies, departments and representatives;
2. Be scalable… Launch exercises as pilots (or betas), and keep the conditions of the exercise limited. Carry out evaluations and if the demand exists, and an ability to supply is in place, release more budget and resources to support expansion. Conversely, scale-down and reallocate resources if evaluation demonstrates little return or a need to start afresh;
3. Observe the rules of engagement… If government is to convince citizens that it is serious about engaging online, it must build up an understanding of how people currently interact with one another and other public and private sector bodies online. Government must not colonise online spaces and avoid the temptation to impose its way of doing things;
4. Design with users… Before launching an online engagement exercise, government should consult with the intended users: ask them what sort of engagement exercise they want, what manner of discussion should be had, and on what kind of platform. Balancing this user input with the needs of policy makers will result in a more engaging and productive exercise than would otherwise be achieved;
5. Train staff… Successful online engagement is more about content, interactivity and skills than it is about technology, which means it needs people. In some cases this may mean that government needs to recruit, but it should also invest in the staff currently in place. Take advantage of transferable experience and skills, provide training and design refresher courses to plug the online engagement skills gap;
6. Be strategic… The best online engagement exercises will be those that make the most strategic choices: about who to target, which offline methods to combine the online with, and at what points around the policy cycle. The advice is to make use of a ‘mixed-economy’ approach, so as to avoid dependence on any one method;
7. Be interactive… It is not enough for government to convene online engagement at arm’s length; it needs to be an active, enthusiastic and visible participant. Asking people for their views and then ignoring them risks the loss of their confidence in both the process and the sponsoring institution;
8. Show your working… In some exams marks are awarded for explaining how you came to an answer. A similar approach should be taken to demonstrating what happened with the input arising from an online engagement exercise. If the input was not especially useful, explain why; do the same where it had an influence on the decision making process.
9. Evaluate… Government should ask difficult questions of its online engagement activity. It should keep a constant review of exercises, carry out its own evaluations but also invite the assistance of independent outside bodies. Government should share its experiences and evaluations. This means that departments would learn from one another’s success and failures; but also that the public would be able to follow government activity and make its own judgements about what is working well.
10. Team up… There are a number of different government networks and funding streams specialising in discrete engagement fields. This fragmentation is leading to replication and inefficiency. Government should establish a cross-departmental ‘community of practice’ to provide leadership, coordination and resources in order to maximise the effectiveness and sustainability of on- and offline engagement activity.
These recommendations are by no means exhaustive but we are confident that these provide the founding principles for government to perpetuate government’s online engagement momentum and begin turning around the fortunes of democratic engagement generally.
Development of these recommendations, with suggestions on their delivery, will be provided in the Phase 3 Digital Dialogues report.
