A London Office of Technology and Innovation Guide
Using Digital Tools and Methods to Engage Residents in Covid Recovery
@LOTI_LDN & @LDN_gov
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#LOTI
Last updated 2 June 2020
About this guide
This guide explores how councils can use digital tools and methods to better involve local residents in the decisions and services that affect their lives.
It’s been produced by the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) as part of our work to help boroughs deliver a strong post-Covid recovery. We warmly invite feedback for its improvement.
LOTI works with London boroughs to bring the best of digital, data and innovation to improve public services and outcomes for Londoners. Read more about our work at: https://medium.com/loti.
We’re willing and able to support LOTI boroughs to trial any of the ideas outlined in this deck.
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Contents
This guide covers the following:
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The Covid context
This guide seeks to build on three trends we’ve witnessed during the Covid crisis period:
As councils look to the recovery period, they’re going to have to make big and difficult decisions about the future of services, public spaces and local amenities. Residents are likely to demand a greater say.
That’s a huge opportunity. But it requires new tools and approaches.
Digital democracy methods can help councils make better decisions, gain more insight about local needs and make residents feel like they have a greater
stake in their communities.
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Key question:
What practical steps can councils take to use digital tools and methods to better engage the public?
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The UK has lagged behind some other countries in using digital tools to support democratic functions. Our most well-known versions come with some challenges.
Shortcomings in the UK’s approach to digital democracy
For example, e-petitions websites like that of the UK Government and Parliament encourage people to express their view on a single issue in isolation of all the other policies it affects.
That makes it hard for politicians to meaningfully engage with petition requests.
The path from petition to outcome is also not very clear.
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Plenty of politicians use social media to engage their communities online, but they often treat it as a broadcast platform.
Even where they do encourage discussion (for example the Chancellor’s #AskRishi sessions on Twitter), it’s worth remembering that social media platforms were never designed to encourage nuanced, constructive debate.
Trolling is a massive problem.
Different subsets of people dominate different platforms, which can mean views are not very representative.
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Shortcomings in the UK’s approach to digital democracy
Key Point:
Councils need to use digital tools that are specifically designed to support democratic functions.
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Key Point:
To encourage meaningful contributions, digital tools cannot simply be bolted on to processes designed to work in an offline world.
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Six areas where digital democracy can help
Crowdsourcing
Ideas
Co-drafting
Policies
Finding
Consensus
Voting
On Ideas
Participatory Budgeting
Crowdfunding
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Democracy is not one process. As part of Covid recovery, councils may wish to consider the potential of digital approaches to improve one or more of the following:
Let’s examine each in turn, looking at practical examples and the tools they used.
Key Point:
Different steps of the democratic process require different tools and methods, and will be able to involve different groups of people in different ways.
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Crowdsourcing Ideas
Objective: To enable citizens to propose and rank ideas for local initiatives.
Case Study: Better Reykjavik was launched in 2010 as a collaboration between the local government and a civic tech charity so that citizens could suggest, debate and rank ideas for improving their city. With the opportunity to vote on specific proposals, they have the power to make real decisions about how local resources are spent and allocated. Far from being of narrow interest to the digitally savvy, more than 70,000 people have visited the website – out of a population of 120,000.
Example tools:
Crowdsourcing
Ideas
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Your Priorities Platform
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Co-drafting Policies
Objective: To get external (expert) input to work up the detail of a specific idea, proposal or policy.
Case Study 1: Members of the French parliament can use Parlement et Citoyens to co-draft legislative proposals with external experts. Senator Joël Labbé used it to consult on a bill on biodiversity. The consultation received more than 2,000 suggestions, 51,516 votes and 9,334 participants and heavily informed the law which was ratified by the National Assembly.
Case Study 2: LOTI used a simple Google Doc to invite expert contributions to create tender wording for technology contracts.
Example tools:
Co-drafting
Policies
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Parlement & Citoyens Platform
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Finding Consensus (Part 1)
Objective: To gauge the ideas, opinions and feelings of a large group of people on a given topic or policy area and identify areas of consensus.
Case Study: The Taiwanese government used Pol.is to crowdsource a set of new regulations on the ridesharing economy. Participants began to compete to make more inclusive and nuanced statements over time, in contrast to the polarised debate taking place on social media.
Example tools:
Finding
Consensus
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For a detailed overview of these tools and how best to use them, see this article by Theo Bass, Nesta.
Pol.is and All Our Ideas Platforms
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Screenshot of Pol.is debate on Ride Sharing: https://vtaiwan.tw/topic/uberx/
Example of allourideas.org, hosted by New York City Council: https://www.allourideas.org/planyc_example?guides=true
Images cited in original Nesta article by Theo Bass: https://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/crowdsourcing-democracy-using-wikisurveys/
Finding Consensus (Part 2 - Citizen Juries)
Objective: To gauge the ideas, opinions and feelings of a large group of people on a given topic or policy area and identify areas of consensus.
Case Study: A different means to find consensus is to use a citizen jury model - a process through which citizens can engage in open, respectful and informed discussion and debate with their peers on a given issue - augmented by the use of digital tools. The Citizens’ Assembly on abortion in Ireland used both online and offline mechanisms. The assembly filtered and responded to submissions made online, and led to the landmark referendum legalising abortion.
Example tools:
Finding
Consensus
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MySociety and Involve, have conducted pilots and produced guidance on using digital tools to support the running of citizen juries.
Voting on Ideas
Objective: To enable residents to vote securely on specific local initiatives for implementation.
Case Study: Several city councils (such as Madrid) have used a platform called nVotes to carry out voting processes open to all their citizens.
Example tools:
Voting
on Ideas
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NVotes Platform
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Voting
on Ideas
CitizenOS
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Voting
on Ideas
Participatory Budgeting
Objective: To enable residents to express their preferences for how portions of a city / council budget are spent.
Case Study 1: Madame La Maire, J’ai une idée, enables parisians to suggest and then vote on how €100 million of the Paris City Government budget is allocated each year. Ideas are crowdsourced online and also through a series of town hall style meetings across the capital.
Case Study 2: Frome Town Council has introduced the People’s Budget (PB), a way for local people get to make choices about how local money is spent. In 2019/2020, £35,000 of the Council’s budget was made available for participatory budgeting, using the Your Priorities platform.
Example tools:
Participatory Budgeting
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Your Priorities Platform from Frome People’s Budget
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Crowdfunding
Objective: To enable residents to financially support local projects and initiatives, sometimes with matched contributions from the council.
Casestudy: Nesta has shared a number of examples of crowdfunding during the Covid crisis. These include communities raising money for personal protective equipment for local hospitals, supporting food banks and helping local businesses.
There are also examples of match crowdfunding, where a local authority matches donations from the community. Lambeth Council and Trust for London are offering match funding to help support communities and businesses through the current crisis.
Example tools:
Crowdfunding
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Crowdfunder
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Crowdfunding
Overview of how London boroughs are working with Spacehive
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Crowdfunding
How to run an effective democratic process using digital tools
Not all democratic processes can or should be open to everyone
For example, if crowdsourcing ideas, you may decide that anyone can take part, whether or not they’re a resident, and do so anonymously. After all, ideas can be assessed on their own merits.
However, if co-drafting a policy, you may wish to insist that participants have relevant experience or expertise. You’re also likely to care if they represent a vested interested who’d be affected by the policy.
If holding a public vote, you’re likely to want to be sure that those voting are residents, or part of the relevant group who will be impacted by the decision.
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Be clear on your objective
(don’t engage for engagement’s sake)
If you want residents to take a process seriously, you need to be able to show that their ideas and contributions are making a meaningful contribution to the council’s thinking, decisions and actions.
Recall the example of how the Natural Environment Research Council asked the public to name their next research vessel. When the winner ‘Boaty McBoatface’ was not used, many participants felt disillusioned.
Only ask for contributions if you actually intend to act on them.
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Always provide a feedback loop
Experience from other cities suggests that people are willing to engage in the democratic processes, even if their idea is not selected, on condition that they can see how their contribution played a part in reaching the final outcome.
This is likely to require transparency about how submissions are considered. Some of the example tools outlined in this document provide this transparency by default.
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Think about process as well as tools
Digital tools must be accompanied by some adaptation to process.
For example, if crowdsourcing ideas and proposals, how will those suggestions feed into the council’s internal operations?
If asking for help in co-drafting a policy, how will those suggestions marry up with suggestions made by council staff and/or elected members?
Do you need to add an additional step to ensure public contributions play a serious role in deliberations?
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Keep the tools simple
There are lots of great tools to support democratic functions. It’s wise to start out by using the simplest tools at your disposal.
The more complex the tool and its function, the more exclusive your process is likely to be.
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Don’t forget those who cannot take part online
A significant number of Londoners - and especially those in vulnerable groups - have limited or no ability to take part online.
Think carefully about what proportion of your community is able to take part using digital tools, and who might be excluded.
Wherever possible, ensure that there are effective offline channels that enable residents to take part on an equal footing. This must be designed into the process from the start.
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Credits and recommended links
This guide draws heavily on the work of:
Digital democracy overview:
Citizen Assemblies
Crowdfunding and match crowdfunding
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