Public discussions on COVID-19 lockdown in Scotland
Reflections from government on the challenges of digital engagement
‘Digital engagement shouldn’t replace face-to-face engagement, it should augment it’ — this was the Scottish government team’s one golden rule for digital engagement. But in times of COVID-19, where physical distancing is expected and gatherings are not allowed, digital is now the only option. And it will be that way for some time to come.
Without a doubt there is a bigger role for digital to play as this pandemic continues. Without knowing the solution, and supposing a collective effort might go some way to finding one, we are sharing some challenges from a government perspective.
As you would expect given our role, we’re big advocates of using digital methods to involve the public. But in advising policy colleagues, we always propose using online technology as part of a broader plan to engage people for inclusiveness. Whether it is workshops, citizens’ assemblies, or consultations, digital is best used to support and augment reaching a wider audience. Core democratic principles of openness, transparency, and accountability guide all our work. Any digital solutions have to be part of the policy making process and offer a meaningful opportunity for people to have their voice heard.
Hearing how people in Scotland want to ease lockdown
Here at the Scottish Government, we hosted an online public discussion about people’s ideas and concerns around lockdown. In planning a route map for easing lockdown the First Minister said “we must also listen to the people of Scotland. Transparency and engagement is fundamental.”
Public engagement has always been at the core of Scottish Government thinking and we recognise the huge need for it during the pandemic. Our team led the digital engagement exercise. We were bowled over by a huge public response — tallying up 4,000 ideas and 18,000 comments. This informed the route map for exiting lockdown and the changes people wanted to see.
In media coverage of the public discussion, a BBC journalist made an observation about the kind of additional benefits that digital engagement provides. This kind of crowdsourcing of people’s stories and experiences served as a kind of collective diary of the nation’s experiences in this uncertain time.
In line with the First Minister’s commitment to involve the people of Scotland in our work, we’re planning to continue engagement in the months to come.
Challenges for digital engagement from government perspective
Many recognise that public engagement at a time of crisis feels more important than ever. Around the world there have been experiments with digital to support existing engagement processes, such as citizens’ assemblies online in France — or sharing information and data on COVID-19 more innovatively and transparently as seen in this global database of examples taking an open approach to COVID-19.
This perspective is shared with the strong caveat that this might look very different for public bodies, local government, or larger national governments.
From our perspective and experience, the challenges include:
· commissioning and procurement
· digital skills
· training on new tools/platforms
· learning, development, and support
· resources (policy, moderation, analysis, communications, digital)
· runs 24/7, not a scheduled event
· inability to predict level of engagement
Proposed suggestions:
· Governments to develop smarter commissioning processes and procurement to enable this work to happen and get solutions in place. For example, expanded versions of the Scottish Government ‘CivTech’ programme, which aims to drive innovation in the public sector and ‘tech for good’. Presenting problems in public sector organisations as challenges, the programme opens up these problems for solving by business and start-ups. Through an open selection process, it is easier for new or smaller businesses to take part, and avoids some complexities and regulations of more traditional procurement processes and frameworks.
· Co-production and collective work between democracy community of experts and relationships with technology community, developers, and those with expertise,
· Existing democracy tech amends/tweaks existing to offer more flexible solutions.
· Get started! Try it out, innovate, test it, iterate, share learnings.
Through this crisis, we’re learning how people are adapting to life and work online in ways we never would have previously imagined possible. In reimagining a new world after this crisis, we need to think about what digital tools and processes will help us get there. Acting quickly in crisis and taking a digital-only approach might harm inclusion and accessibility, and damage our core principles for democratic engagement. Facing these challenges now feels like the highest priority.
Energy needs to be focused on finding the new role for digital — one that supports and facilitates engagement and deliberation processes, replicating online and linking offline activity where possible. Democracy needs this in the new world to keep it alive and help it thrive.
Niamh Webster is a Digital Engagement Manager at the Scottish Government. She is on Twitter at @niamhwebster. If you want to discuss any ideas you have or examples of using different digital platforms we should be aware of, please comment below or get in touch with the Digital Engagement Team at DigitalEngagement@gov.scot or @ScotGovEngage.
Are you a practitioner delivering a representative deliberative process fully or partially online? The OECD has put together this survey for practitioners about what they are doing, how, and why. Answers are publicly available from the moment they are submitted in this viewable Airtable database (except for the name, job title and email of the individual filling out the form).
This post is part of the Digital for Deliberation series. Read the other articles:
Digital for deliberation: Catching the deliberative wave
We are opening a discussion on the use of digital tools for deliberative processes, in collaboration with our colleagues working on digital government and public sector innovation.
How can digital tools support deliberation? Join the conversation!
The series will focus on three overarching questions: (1) How can digital tools support representative deliberative processes? (2) What are the limits of using digital tools for representative deliberative processes? (3) In what other contexts could these learnings be applied?
Designing an online citizens’ assembly: A practitioner perspective
One of the core elements of a citizens’ assembly is to create the space for people to meet face-to-face. That is where the magic of citizens’ assemblies lies. Why go online then? Marcin Gerwin offers some ideas.
Engineering for deliberative democracy
Just as the architecture of a meeting hall affects whose voice can be heard, the design of our digital tools provides and forecloses certain political possibilities. Jessica Feldman outlines where engineering decisions need to be made.
Designing text-based tools for digital deliberation
Understanding and measuring the influence of certain features on the quality of online text-based deliberations can help us make better design decisions.
Online deliberation: Opportunities and challenges
Lyn Carson in conversation with Graham Smith about what we know and don’t know about transferring face-to-face deliberations to an online environment.
The digital participatory process that fed into the French Climate Assembly
The online contributions from the wider public on the Decidim platform enriched the work of the in-person assembly, writes Eloïse Gabadou.
Digital solutions can complement real world participation — but mustn’t exclude
After public meetings can resume, digital participation will likely grow as a complement to offline events. This will broaden citizen engagement — but we have to be careful it doesn’t freeze people out.
Digital parliaments: Adapting democratic institutions to 21st century realities
The coronavirus crisis should be a catalyst for institutionalising the use of digital tools in parliament, argues French MP Paula Forteza.
Digital tools to open the judiciary: A perspective from Argentina
Pablo Hilaire writes that by promoting conscious uses of digital technologies in favour of open justice, we have learnt that to facilitate and promote deliberation and participation online, we need to put citizens at the centre, from the design to the collection of data and feedback.
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