Presentation to Finnish delegation 16 Jan 2012 Making participation count v01
- 1. HOW TO MAKE PARTICIPATION COUNT? Picture CC: Some rights reserved byDarnok
- 2. What we will cover 1. About Involve 2. Why engagement is important 3. Motivations for Participation 4. Culture change and engagement 5. New practices in engagement 6. Q&A
- 3. About • Registered Charity (nr. 1130568) • Focus: Public and stakeholder engagement • Works with: Central & local government. Health organisations, NGOs and International Organisations • www.involve.org.uk
- 6. Why is engagement important? • Consider the reasons • Write on post its • Share with others
- 7. Local engagement in democracy Findings and implications from Pathways through Participation
- 8. Available from: www.pathwaysthroughparticipation.org.uk/resources
- 9. Research questions How and why does participation begin, continue and stop? Can trends and patterns of participation be identified over time? What connections, if any, are there between different forms and episodes of participation and what triggers movement between them?
- 10. 101 in-depth interviews Life stories Qualitative research Individual at the heart Approach Participation as ‘situated practice’ 3 field work areas: Leeds Stakeholder Enfield engagement Suffolk
- 11. What is participation? Social participation: the collective activities that individuals are involved in Public participation: the engagement of individuals with the various structures and institutions of democracy Individual participation: people’s individual actions and choices that reflect the kind of society they want to live in
- 12. Why participation starts Helping others Developing relationships Groups and organisations Exercising values & beliefs Local environment and place Having influence For personal benefit Practical resources Being part of something Learnt resources Felt resources An emotional reaction A personal life event An external influence
- 13. Why participation continues or stops Impact Life event Enjoyment Friendships Relationships Time Health Energy
- 14. The factors that shape participation Individual motivations and resources Relationships and social networks Groups and organisations Local environment and place Wider societal and global influences
- 15. Conclusions Participation is personal Participation can be encouraged, supported & made more attractive Significant barriers to participation are entrenched
- 16. Briefing paper Also available from: www.pathwaysthroughparticipation.org.uk/resources
- 17. Local engagement in democracy Social participation: the collective activities that individuals are involved in Public participation: the engagement of individuals with the various structures and institutions of democracy Individual participation: people’s individual actions and choices that reflect the kind of society they want to live in
- 18. The language and image Local engagement in democracy The accessibility The practice
- 19. Language and image Voting a Safe seats Perceptions of ‘civic duty’ discourage activities were political important Not ‘political’ participation Low levels of trust Perceptions of the and confidence political system Politicians seen as self-serving But perceptions Positive opinions of particular can be overcome political representatives
- 20. Practice Examples of bringing about Opportunities to change through lobbying participate No examples of public bodies proactively engaging with people Tokenistic and/or repetitious Negative experiences of public consultations Decision already made Tension between People wanted Perceptions of motivation of to see the impact impact of their citizens and needs of public participation bodies
- 21. Accessibility Need to respond Need to Opportunities to to their needs complement participate people’s lives motivations and expectations A lack of Sometimes resources stop due to People’s resources people from systemic participating inequalities Relationships Relationships and Groups important can determine groups source of public success of participation participation
- 22. Implications Language and Practice Accessibility image Increase impact of Involve people early Show that people will individual’s vote and be genuine be welcome and valued Engage with citizens Understand people’s on their terms motivations and be Support social flexible participation Value, respect and resource those already Show the impact and Work with those actively engaged limit the cost of actively engaged to participation connect with others Recognise what is easy and difficult to influence
- 23. What are your personal motivations to take part? • Consider a time when you participated • What drove you to? • What held you back?
- 24. Some rights reserved by mastermaq Engagement
- 25. 3 types of democracy: 1.Representative 2.Direct 3.Participative
- 26. Number of democracies ‘Free’ societies according to Freedom House 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 Free
- 27. Enthusiasm 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 Turnout in European Parliament Elections
- 28. Trust 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1983 1993 1997 2003 2007 2011 Politicans
- 29. UK political parties 3,500,000 3,000,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 1,000,000 500,000 0 1951 1965 1975 1984 1993 2000 2008 Conservative Labour
- 30. Drivers for engagement • Structures out of date • Mismatch demand/supply • Public expectations different • Legitimacy harder to acquire • Co-produced problems
- 31. Understanding Engagement: Making it all add up Process / Purpose Context People Outcome Structure Why Where Who What How Process/ Structure How
- 32. Understanding Engagement: Policy Cycle – PE at different points Feedback/ Evaluation Agenda Setting User/ Citizen Panels Implementation Visioning Deliberative forums Polling Surveys Campaigns Future search Mapping Delivery Delivery Co-production Political Vision Service delivery Decision Making Follow Process Attend meetings Policy Formulation Webcasting Newsletter Shaping Policies Email Deliberative forums Reports Citizen panels Media Policy Proposals Focus groups Dialogues Consultation Polling Written Face-to-face Media generates debate
- 33. Understanding Engagement: Policy Cycle – role of evidence Business Animal rights Media Personal Prejudice PE Process Economic Parents Medical staff Cultural Point in Cycle Patients Political Religious leaders Media Scientific/ medical
- 34. "It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out of date." — Roger von Oech
- 35. What civil servants think “…it’s got a number of different uses (…) no- one is quite sure what it means.” “finding out what people think and using that information to come up with better policies.” “makes our policies more robust (...) it needs to have the buy-in from society as a whole” “it’s all about creating behaviour change”
- 36. What civil servants think “...it’s a box ticking exercise for people who have no constituency, no decision making and are routinely ignored by anyone who does actually have any influence over decision making; it’s a sham”
- 37. Problems “If you consider yourself an expert and have been schooled as such and have spent years getting a scientific background or whatever else, you might be more reluctant to say I’m going to try and speak to the man in the street”
- 38. Problems “There’s lots and lots of consultations that are about (…) either a political fix to get the answer that people want by, you know, slanting questions or only including certain groups that you think might agree with you.”
- 39. Problems “I think it is for officials to understand the value of going out there and talking to people and it needs to be a mindset rather than set of rules, I think there is a real disconnect there. People with the mindset came up with a set of rules and people without the mindset just obey the rules without actually doing it.”
- 40. Cynicism...? “Some policy makers end up disappointed because they think, ‘well what’s all this talk that engagement will help to develop shared ownership. No it didn’t, we did everything we could to engage them – took them to nice hotels and had long discussion groups and they still didn’t like what we said’.”
- 41. ... Or Opportunity? “For the policy makers, the policy colleagues recruited to work on public engagement were actually all very enthusiastic and some of them started being mildly enthusiastic and finished being very enthusiastic, and are now advocates for the value of public engagement amongst their colleagues.”
- 42. Culture Change
- 43. "The achievement of excellence can only occur if the organization promotes a culture of creative dissatisfaction." — Lawrence Miller
- 44. Institutional factors 1. Mission 2. Leadership 3. Communication 4. Reward 5. Support 6. Learning 7. Staff 8. Stakeholders 9. Public
- 45. Empowerment vs Big Society? Community Empowerment Big Society ‘’the giving of “Central government need confidence, skills and power to focus on doing the things to communities to shape that only government can and influence what public do (…) what we need to bodies do for or with them.” facilitate is that – at the most local, most individual (Source: An Action Plan for level – people both identify Community and solve problems in the Empowerment, 2007) way that they wish to solve them”. Dame Helen Ghosh
- 46. Context Central inputs Structures Institutional culture Political culture Social capital Service type Geography
- 47. What engagement needs Start Middle After • Planning • Skills • Senior • Time • Staff Commitme • Staff • Resources nt • Skills • Analytical capacity • Strategic focus • Communica tion • Evaluation
- 48. Current Engagement Lots of activity (but limited methods): – Written consultation – Public meeting – Satisfaction surveys – Questionnaires
- 49. Current Engagement • Late in decision making cycle • Fixed in format and structure • Limited in scope • One size fits all • On Government terms • Focus on hard numbers
- 50. Radical Engagement Innovative practice: – Participatory budgeting – Online – Bottom up – Informal engagement
- 51. Radical Engagement • Starts with lived experience of citizens. • Builds capacity of citizens to problem-solve. • Designed with long-term impact in mind. • Citizens commissioned to tackle challenges. • Uses right incentives –including having fun. • Makes most of behavioural sciences • Personalises engagement opportunities. • Uses social networks analysis
- 52. My Estonia
- 53. ‘Our Budget Our Economy’
- 54. ‘Geraldton: 2029 and Beyond’
- 56. Only ask: Image: laughlin (Creative Commons) • If you want to know the answer • About things that people know something about
- 57. involve Royal London House 22-25 Finsbury Square London EC2A 1DX t: 0 20 7920 6470 e: edward@involve.org.uk twitter: ed_andersson
Editor's Notes
- #25: Some rights reserved by mastermaq
- #27: http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=594
- #28: http://www.ukpolitical.info/european-parliament-election-turnout.htm
- #29: http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=15&view=wide
- #30: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/briefings/snsg-05125.pdf
- #32: [bullet] One of the reasons that people get it wrong is because they start with the process or the structure they want for engagementthe way they want to run an engagement event[bullet] And they hope that it is going to lead to the outcome they want[bullet] But doesn’t work like that[bullet] shouldn’t start with process but ratherAND THEN GO THROUGH THE FORMULA Note at the end that it isn’t in fact linear, but is rather an iterative process
- #33: Once understood the objective, Need to understand what decision trying to influencepolicy cycle can be helpful, even if not a fair representation of how decisions are madeTalk through cycle
- #34: Looking at one part of the policy cycleCould be any partNeeds a clear view of who is taking the decisionAnd the evidence they will be usingPE will only be one partAs this will impact on type of engagementIt is only by being really clear how the engagement process you are going to embark on is going to impact on the decision that you can be sure you won’t waste public resources and goodwill of the community.
- #57: Creative Commons: laughlin (flickr) http://www.flickr.com/photos/wurzle/659315/