ONS Small Area Geographies Consultation Blog
URL
CASE STUDY OWNER
Office of National Statistics (ONS)
LESSONS LEARNT
Strengths
- This exercise was an innovative use of a blog application in a consultation context;
- The blog’s purpose was clear to both its managers and users;
- Driven by the innovative medium, the tone of the consultation was unique;
- Respondents were provided with a choice of online submission routes (blog, email and survey);
- The consultation team had a clear idea of who respondents and blog users would be;
- The blog generated a good quantity and depth of user comments in a short time-frame;
- The blog had a comprehensive set of basic technical features in place.
Potential for improvement
- The initial intention to structure blog entries around consultation themes (in the consultation paper) was not pursued;
- To sustain initial interest the blog required more frequent interactions between users and the author;
- More should have been made of the stakeholder community that formed around the blog. Providing direction on where users could follow-up on this activity should have been the minimum.
OVERVIEW
The Office for National Statistics is the principal provider of official statistics about the UK; its information is used by government to make decisions about society and the economy. Its material is also available to members of the public.
POLICY PURPOSE
The ONS is keen to establish a long-term small area geography policy which will be used for Census 2011 and the development of Neighbourhood Statistics. The aim is to support the production of coherent and useful data that can be used with confidence by a range of organisations. To this end, the ONS produced a policy proposal and opened it out for consultation. The proposal was to develop stability with the existing Super Output Area geographical hierarchy, meaning that where there has been significant population gain or loss, areas will be subject to simple maintenance changes at the time of the Census.
The blog was launched alongside the conventional consultation response routes and an online survey. The blog entries were to follow the structure of the main points of the policy proposal, but it also provided the consultation team with a place to react to what they had read, heard or seen as the consultation moved forward.
The team was keen that stakeholders – and members of the public – used the blog to keep up to date with the progress of the consultation, and as a means of drawing the ONS’ attention to particular issues related to their proposals.
The proposed policy affects the whole of the UK.
MODEL
Weblog (third-party build, design and hosting).
The blog author (Nick Stripe) was a policy official. He was supported by the ONS communications division, which was responsible for promoting the blog; the communications team was available to moderate comments when the author was unavailable.
Moderation of comments was carried out prior to publication; this was principally the responsibility of the blog author.
The blog was public and anyone could comment; although name, email and acknowledgement of the terms and conditions were required.
DURATION
The blog ran from November 21, 2006, to February 20, 2007.
PUBLICITY
The blog was marketed on the ONS corporate website as well as through the national and trade media.
Email alerts and letters were sent to an existing database of stakeholders.
There was no paid-for advertising.
OTHER METHODS
Consultation submissions were invited: people could respond by email, letter or through an online survey (linked to by the blog).
USER PROFILES
No demographic information was collected.
Respondents to the pre-consultation survey (n=30) defined themselves as regular internet users, with 77% accessing it from work and 23% from home. The majority were not regular readers of blogs and were infrequent visitors to policy-related blogs:
Fifty per cent of respondents had been in touch with their local MP. Only 13% had given evidence to a parliamentary inquiry; but 66% had participated in government consultations previously.
Efficacy was high by one measure: 73% of respondents believed that Parliament listens to them. However, by another it was low: only 43% believed that their participation would have any influence on the way the country is run.
USAGE TRENDS
The author made 10 blog entries. 65 comments were posted – 11 were made by the blog author in response to users.
The number of comments tailed-off after an initial surge when the blog first launched. However, the viewing traffic rose over the duration of the consultation, with the highest number of visits received in the final month:
The consultation’s online survey (linked from the blog) was completed by 362 respondents (although 150 of them were incomplete).
USER FEEDBACK
Post-consultation surveys were completed by 22 blog visitors.
Respondents were asked to rate the blog in comparison with others that they had visited (with 5 being the highest rating and 1 the lowest). In general, the blog received a positive rating:
Despite being compared favourably with other blogs, respondents were unsure whether it was a useful engagement tool:
Respondents said they were motivated to visit the blog because they wanted to engage with a government representative on a specialist area of policy. However, many were disappointed by the author’s frequency of interaction with the users. Although the blog received a reasonable rate of traffic, visitors rarely made repeat visits:
DETAILED FEEDBACK
This case study made innovative use of a blog application by applying it to a consultation context. Where the convention is for blogs to be maintained on an ongoing basis with entries drawing on personal experiences and views for profile-raising purposes, this blog was used as a consultation tool with a finite lifespan with a fixed structure (each entry focusing on a theme from the consultation paper).
The blog appealed to policy stakeholders and, when it launched, attracted a large number of comments. These user contributions were detailed and focused on the consultation and the theme of the particular entry. Initially, the blog author interacted with participants on a fairly consistent (if cursory) basis. However, this interaction was not sustained and never went into particular depth. This was picked up on by users in their feedback surveys as a disappointing feature of the exercise – especially because many had been motivated to visit the blog on the basis of interacting with the policy expert.
Traffic to the blog built over time and was at its highest when the consultation and blog closed. Online communities take time to build up momentum and there is a risk in using blogs as a consultation tool because government consultations have a finite duration (usually 12 weeks). However, in recognising that there was interest in this consultation, policy and blog, the ONS had an opportunity to build and facilitate a useful stakeholder community. Although the consultation submission period had ended, the policy process was ongoing and the blog’s content – and indeed its authorship – could have been modified as the process moved into a new phase to take advantage of the interest and expertise put at its disposal.
FOLLOW UP
It is not clear how the ONS will develop its use of digital forms of engagement in a similar manner.
