CLG Forum

URL

http://forum.communities.gov.uk

CASE STUDY OWNER

Communities and Local Government

LESSONS LEARNT

Strengths

• This forum generated a (comparatively) large number of registrants and repeat visitors;
• There was a clear delineation of responsibilities between communications, policy and web teams for the forum;
• Active and visible linking between the department’s various websites (blogs, corporate sites, forum, webchats) and offline channels made good use of audiences and participant bases;
• The range of discussion themes reflected the policy areas of the department;
• Forum was used to consult at various stages of the policy cycle, and users were given opportunities to respond to reports and revisit discussions.

Potential for improvement

• Moderators could have intervened more often as facilitators to maintain momentum in deliberation between peers;
• Measures to discourage participants from referencing and pursuing localised disputes, as these are isolating to others;
• There was inconsistent marketing from one forum topic to the next.

OVERVIEW

Communities and Local Government was created on May 5, 2006, to promote community cohesion and equality. It also has responsibility for housing, urban regeneration, planning and local government.

It unites the communities and civil renewal functions previously undertaken by the Home Office, with responsibility for regeneration, neighbourhood renewal and local government previously held by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Communities and Local Government also has responsibility for equality policy, including policy on race, faith, gender and sexual orientation. These functions were previously split between several government departments.

POLICY PURPOSE

The online discussion forum was set up to enable those with an interest in local government to discuss a number of related issues, to respond to set consultations and to exchange ideas about best practice amongst peers.

Initially launched as the ‘local:vision’ forum, the site was set up for those with an interest in the Local Government White Paper. This phase of the site was evaluated up to June 2, 2006 (a full evaluation can be found in the Digital Dialogues Interim Report).

The forum was relaunched in July 2006 to incorporate discussions on a broader range of departmental policies. These have included:

• Core Cities, Smaller Cities and Larger Towns;
• New Firefighters’ Pension Scheme – options and implementation;
• Sites for Gypsies and Travellers;
• Achieving Building Standards;
• New Look Local Government Pension Scheme;
• City Development Companies;
• Local Government White Paper – Implementation;
• Commission on the role of local councillors;
• Cave Review of Social Housing Regulation;
• Commission on Integration and Cohesion;
• Future of the 2008 Fire and Rescue Service National Framework.

Most of these discussions have fed into specific consultations. In some cases, a follow-up (post-consultation) discussion has been started to provide feedback to participants and enable further debate.

Some of these discussions were closed before the evaluation was completed; others were ongoing.

MODEL

Online deliberative forum.

The policy areas directly impact on England and Wales. However, access and participation was not restricted to England and Wales. The forum was readable by anyone but registration was required to contribute.

The forum was pre-moderated by Communities and Local Government policy staff.

Representatives from policy teams logged into relevant areas of the forum to promote deliberation, respond to queries and to summarise discussions.

DURATION

Individual forum topics had particular opening and closing times.

PUBLICITY

The forum was publicised on the Communities and Local Government website, www.info4local.com and in local government newsletters and email alerts.

Each forum topic received its own promotion: some of the policy staff promoted their forum topics by incorporating links in their email signatures; in some cases, ministers promoted the forum topic that related to their consultation in speeches and at public appearances.

There was no paid-for marketing.

OTHER METHODS

Consultation participants could email or post hard copies of their submissions.

Users with specific queries could email, phone or write to the department.

USER PROFILES

2,210 registrants: 64% male, 28% female; 8% did not say.

Of the 275 participants who responded to our pre-consultation survey, 96% said that they were regular internet users, accessing the web from a range of locations:

Combination 35%
Home 38%
Work 23%
Other 4%

Despite being active internet users, the majority (64%) had not participated in online consultations before registering on the Communities and Local Government forum.

Many of the users had been in touch with their local MP previously (69%). Prior to registering with the forum, 40% had taken part in a government consultation, and 13% had submitted evidence to a parliamentary inquiry.

USAGE TRENDS

Participants made a total of 411 posts by the close of the evaluation. The following graph shows the number of visitors to the website, the number of registrants and the number of posts:

As is the norm in discussion forums, the viewing figures were significantly higher than the number of comments posted: people made a number of repeat visits and traffic levels rose even when the number of posts was constant. Registration rates remained consistent, highlighting that deliberations were attracting interest throughout the forum’s existence, most probably on account of the regularity of new topics being uploaded.

USER FEEDBACK

We received post-activity feedback about the forum from users who had taken part in the consultations or discussions that occurred over its duration (n=141).

In general, users were positive about their experience of the forum and engagement online in a general sense. The responses – as percentages – are summarised in the table below:

Users suggested that online consultations offered a more transparent form of communication than conventional consultation methods. For example, people’s comments were visible to others, as was their dialogue with government officials.

In their qualitative feedback, users said that they hoped to influence policy. Others believed that online deliberations would attract a broad range of perspectives (although some voiced a concern that this could mean that deliberation would lack depth). Many anticipated little government feedback.

The majority of participants reported reading forum contributions, but not necessarily making any posts of their own.

DETAILED FEEDBACK

The Communities and Local Government forum is the closest any department has come to having and sustaining a truly ‘departmental public forum’. The Communities and Local Government forum opened up discussions on a range of topics at various stages of the policy cycle. The communications division coordinated the forum, but policy teams were given ownership of particular topics. Most topic spaces had a core participant base in mind but, in the main, any member of the public could register and get involved. This was the biggest, best-established and widest ranging of the Digital Dialogues case studies, and deserves close attention.

The forum received some criticism: users claimed that policy members did not provide enough feedback or stimulate discussion sufficiently – this despite a concerted effort on the part of moderators to be visible and to contribute regularly. Policy officials made the most individual posts (an average of three per team member). The highest number of posts for a user was 17; the highest number of posts for a moderator was 26.

Pre-moderation was used to ensure that posts did not contravene the site’s terms and conditions, but this often resulted in a delay between submitting comments and seeing them published. This made some participants reluctant to post; some worried that ‘pre-moderation’ was jargon for ‘censorship’ even though the difference was explained on the site. Others simply found that the time lag reduced the quality of their user experience. Nevertheless, users were positive about the role the moderators could play in preventing polarisation of opinion, keeping discussion on-topic and managing disruptive participants.

The low-commitment nature of the website appealed to those who wanted to see what others were saying without being obliged to contribute. For many, the ease and openness of online engagement was the biggest draw: people could look at the website at their own convenience and observe the unfolding discussions, possibly even tracking the way that their own contributions had in some way influenced policy decisions. However, the informality of forum deliberations, combined with a perceived disconnect between citizens and policy officials, led some users to worry that online deliberations would not be valued as highly as offline submissions.

FOLLOW UP

Communities and Local Government plans to make online routes available for most of its consultations. It is inviting the forum community from the site used in Digital Dialogues to use its own platform, which will provide greater control over the forum format and improved community management tools.