Newsletter, July 2010

Contents this month

• Main article - Your freedom to ignore the rules of public engagement
• Project news
• Dialogue by Design now on Twitter

Your freedom to ignore the rules of public engagement

My first job was at the London offices of Friends of the Earth. The words of a poster on the wall in the kitchen have stuck with me over the subsequent 20 years: ‘always challenge the dominant paradigm’. It was these words that echoed as I looked at a few of the new government’s public engagement websites.

Buying into dialogue

One of the first things the new government did was put up a website where you could comment on their planned programme – the ‘Spending Challenge’. More recently they followed this up with the ‘Your Freedom’ website that is asking citizens which laws they would remove and why. So what does this flurry of open two-way government mean for public engagement and dialogue?

Firstly, it is interesting that the Your Freedom site refers to itself as a dialogue, indeed the software is called a ‘dialogue app’. Over the past few years I, and colleagues, regularly and painfully discussed our definition of dialogue, how others use the term, and what makes a dialogue different from other forms of public engagement. We strive to instil these principles in the people we work with to ensure best practice. But dialogue is a good word, a word that feels inclusive, a listening and sharing word. In short, dialogue is a word so ripe to be hijacked by politicians it is surprising that it has taken this long.

The 2.0 generation

Does this matter? Should we simply embrace the fact that politicians are willing and eager to try new ways of engaging with large numbers of the public and thereby draw citizens into the political domain? Should we watch with awe as the 2.0 generation (those who use Internet tools and sites to collaborate and share ideas and content, such as bloggers) develop applications that can reach and interact with many thousands of people? In a nutshell: should we just get off our elitist soap boxes, stop trying to make public dialogue meaningful, informed and valuable for both policy makers and participants?

I think the answer is no. Of course we should embrace new technology and come up with new and creative ways of using it. But, let’s not lose sight of the principle that designing engagement processes must be based on what we want to achieve. Therefore the tools we apply should follow from the objectives rather than drive the process.

Another question: are public views good regardless of how ill-informed, silly, cynical or indeed irrelevant they are to the questions being asked? The answer to this also has to be no. No policy maker in their right mind would look at the flow of views spilling through the Your Freedom site and say ‘this is the voice of the people and we must listen’ – at least I hope they wouldn’t. That is not to say that there are no extremely sensible and thoughtful views being expressed, but these are difficult to find. Moreover, there is no sense that views are being organised, read and considered.

A vehicle for lobbying

Part of the problem is not so much the tool being used, but the framing of the objectives. We live in a democracy where part of our freedom is defined by the laws that protect us from things as well as freedoms to do things. These laws are often complex and multi-layered and some may well be silly and unnecessary. Still, an open call for ideas to get rid of laws was always bound to result in special interests using it as a vehicle for lobbying, rather than result in thoughtful ideas from people with a sound understanding of legal and regulatory frameworks. It is these people who, I for one, would prefer to have considering the removal of laws or regulations.

As one of a group of practitioners working on behalf of Sciencewise (a government funded initiative to support public dialogue around science and technology policy making) I am keenly aware that public dialogue in this sector has to work for a policy making community where ‘evidence based policy making’ has been a long held mantra. Amongst this group the key challenge in terms of public dialogue has always been how to engage with the public on complex issues in a way that ensures the public’s views are valued and given credibility by this community. The first hurdle to jump is providing the public with sufficient, credible information so that they can formulate views and express them clearly.

It is extremely difficult to do this on a large scale (particularly in budget straitened times) and the techniques used are never perfect. Nevertheless, there is one very important common characteristic of the various Sciencewise funded public dialogues over the past few years: the policy makers they are trying to inform and influence have (I believe in every case) been pleasantly surprised by the intelligent, thoughtful and well articulated nature of public views. Frustrating and patronising as those of us who have been working on public engagement for years find this, it nevertheless positively reinforces public engagement every time.

I am prepared to bet that the outcomes of the Your Freedom dialogue will disappoint those who advocate the value of public engagement and will reinforce the views of those who have always doubted its validity.

Silly crowds?

Crowdsourcing and the wisdom of crowds are terms tripping off the keyboards of bloggers, consultants and even politicians at the moment and hailed as a universal good. Again these terms say ‘inclusivity’, ‘openness’ and ‘grass roots’, so it’s difficult not to support these ideas. But crowdsourcing and harnessing the wisdom of the crowds work in particular circumstances and adhere to rules. If you don’t follow these rules, crowds can be very silly indeed.

It seems to me that whilst some perceive the current online processes to be a genuine attempt to bring the public into the policy makers’ sphere of influence, others see it much more as a communication exercise and a public call to action. The two websites (Your Freedom, and the Spending Challenge) fail to successfully achieve either of these objectives because I suspect the ‘what are you trying to achieve?’ question was secondary to ‘what can we get the technology to do?’ question.

So whilst it may not be popular, I am prepared to challenge the dominant paradigm. I believe that the public at large can and should become more engaged with policy making. If community (or Big Society) means anything, it means having a relationship with the people, institutions and rules which impact on our lives. The ‘have your say’ type tools that have emerged lately do nothing to engender a sense of community or confidence about the wisdom of the crowd.

Pippa Hyam