Talking about basic income
In Digital, we work with teams across the government to engage people online as they’re developing new policies and services for people.
Last November, we worked with the Ministry of Community and Social Services (MCSS) to launch the Basic Income Pilot consultation . It is one of our most successful consultations on Ontario.ca ever.
If you’re not familiar with the consultation, here’s a crash course.
Governments and communities around the world have explored the concept. It can take various shapes and forms, but — at its essence — basic income is an unconditional payment, from the government, to a person/family living at or below the poverty line to help them reach a certain income level.
Different than social assistance, a basic income can be:
- given to anyone who meets the income eligibility criterion
- generally simpler to administer
- an unconditional payment that doesn’t require the person receiving it to find work or prove they’re trying to find work
A basic income can be implemented in a number of ways, including:
- giving the same amount of money to everyone
- topping up the incomes of people who earn less than a certain amount
- setting up a negative income tax where people who earn less than a certain amount get a payment from the government, instead of paying taxes
We worked with the Ministry of Community and Social Services (MCSS), who is responsible for delivering social assistance in Ontario, to explore how to design, deliver and evaluate a basic income pilot. To start, the ministry asked Hugh Segal to write a report detailing how and where we could pilot a basic income in Ontario. Using some of Segal’s recommendations, the government decided to launch a pilot in 2017 — and wanted to ask the public and experts for input before rolling it out.
From November 3, 2016 to January 31, 2017, we invited people to share their feedback in person at 14 different community meetings, through written submissions and and two unique online surveys: one for researchers/experts/academics and another for the public.
The numbers
To give you a sense of why this was one of our most successful consultations ever, here are some of the numbers at a glance. Between November 3, 2016 and January 31, 2017:
- 32,870 responded to the public survey
- 1,213 responded to the expert/academic survey
- 530 private citizens and community groups sent written submissions
Let’s pause for a moment and take that in. Tens of thousands of people took time out of their day to tell us how we can improve a government service.
The message is loud and clear: a lot of people care about how we deliver social programs in this province and the impact this pilot could have on lifting people out of poverty.
Pete from Peterborough
Hugh Segal did a ton of research, which is great because MCSS asked for thorough recommendations.
The Pilot Team at MCSS however, knew that it was unfair to expect the average person to read a 101-page report and then answer survey questions. To summarize the report and help people digest the main points, they created a 27-page, short consultation guide.
This was a very helpful resource, but to get people to read through and finish the survey, we needed to adapt the consultation guide to create a simple and structured survey.
We worked with the Pilot team to develop a completely unique approach: instead of one survey for all, why not two surveys? One could be for researchers and experts, the other for Pete from Peterborough.
To give you a bit of context, Pete is the creation of our in-house research guru, David Plaxton. Typically, when we’re working on a consultation, we work with him to figure out why we’re asking the question and how to ask it. Without fail, he always tells us to, “Remember Pete from Peterborough.”
Basically, Pete is busy, so he maybe has 5 minutes for a survey, is most likely to fill out the survey on his phone and has an opinion on things but doesn’t necessarily follow government goings-on so closely. Essentially, Pete is just like a lot of us in the province.
We could have called him Lola from Sault Ste. Marie or Afia from Mississauga. The point is, we kept Pete — our user — in mind when we designed the online survey.
Using two surveys
If you participated in the basic income consultation, you would have noticed two distinct surveys.
The public survey was very short (5 minutes) and asked the user:
- what they know about basic income
- whether they think it’s a good idea or not, why or why not?
- whether they think their community would be a good candidate for the pilot, why/why not?
- whether they’d like to receive updates on the pilot as it rolls out
The expert survey was much longer (15–25 minutes) and asked detailed questions about the design of the pilot, how much the benefit amount should be based on current social assistance and Low-Income Measure data, who should run the program and how the government should measure the outcomes etc.
Lessons learned
Although basic income was one of our most successful online surveys, it was not our first.
We started hosting consultations on Ontario.ca in 2014 — starting with Budget Talks.
While the following insights aren’t brand new, they are a good summary of what we’ve learned and put into practice.
1. Figure out who you want to talk to and why.
This seems fairly straightforward, but it’s actually quite challenging. You may have in-depth understanding about the thing you love/built/wrote/have spent years working on.
We love your passion, but not everyone has the same experience and knowledge with a topic. We still want them to be able to engage and provide input to government.
Ask yourself:
- Who am I trying to talk to (FYI, everyone is not a real answer!)?
- Why am I talking to them?
- What do I want to learn from them?
- What will I do with what they tell me? This one’s especially important if they tell you something you don’t like/want to hear.
2. Choose the best format for your audience.
Once you know who your target audience is, decide on a format that will reach the people you want to talk with. There are many ways to consult, for example:
- crowd sourcing ideas and asking people to vote on their favourites (e.g. Budget Talks)
- an online survey (e.g. Ticket buying and resale consultation)
- in-person meetings (e.g. Early years and childcare consultation)
- asking people to comment on policies and regulations online (e.g. Red Tape Challenge)
- asking people to give their feedback in phases (e.g. the Condo Act review)
- asking people to send their feedback via email (e.g. Travel Industry Act review)
How you consult depends on what you’re talking about and who you’re talking to.
3. Customize your content.
If you’ve ever had an outfit or piece of clothing custom designed to fit your body, you’ll understand when I say fit is everything. Once you’ve figured out who you’re talking to and how you want to do it, work really hard to make sure you’re developing content for them rather than for ourselves or our peers.
4. Ask real questions.
This is critical. In the same way most people recognize when they’re being mocked or belittled in real life, most people know when you’re insulting their digital intelligence by asking leading or superficial questions in an online survey. The average person can tell when you’re asking real questions to collect real data to affect real change and when you’re asking questions to try and support whatever you were planning to do anyway. Please, just don’t.
5. Make it as simple as it can be.
If a 13-year-old doesn’t understand your content, keep editing until they do; or start over.
Most content on Ontario.ca (with the exception of very technical or scientific data) is written for a grade 6–8 reading level. While it sounds cheeky to suggest adults give their content to an eighth grader to review, this is not about dumbing things down. Content should be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.
One of our core philosophies on the Content Team is that a person with a doctorate, a person who didn’t finish high school and a person with a learning or cognitive disability should all be able to understand what’s on the Government of Ontario’s website. It’s not always easy but it’s certainly worth the effort.
6. Share the results.
If people take the time to share their opinions with you to help improve a product or service, they deserve to know:
- what you heard during the survey (and not just the positive stuff or the things you agree with)
- how their feedback will change your product or service
- what obstacles are stopping you from putting the feedback you received into action (just be honest, most people will appreciate it)
- what the next steps are and how they can follow along or receive updates
It’s important to remember that a report back doesn’t always mean you need to actually write a report. Since 2013, Ontario has been leading the way when it comes to open government by releasing raw, government data on our Data Catalogue.
If you can release the raw survey data (once you’ve scrubbed it of any identifying or personal information, of course), please do.
Although the consultation is now closed, MCSS recently released their consultation report back which outlines what they heard during the consultation.
Oh, and if you happen to run into a gentleman named Pete and he happens to live in Peterborough, tell him we said thank you. It’s only fitting that he gets some credit for the success of this consultation.
