Consultation and the “Schofield Syndrome” - Why broadcaster’s experience of social media holds important messages for public engagement

In preparation for the Institute’s Tenth Anniversary in 2013, there has been a good deal of discussion about the most significant changes that have taken place over the decade. We have concluded that there are two massive issues:

1. The increasing willingness of interest groups to go to the Courts when they think the rules of consultation have been broken. Judicial reviews have become an almost weekly phenomenon, and public bodies are even
2. beginning to plan their engagement exercises on the assumption that there might be a legal challenge.
3. The rapid adoption of social media as a means for people and organisations to express their views, and for consultors to use for data gathering and analysis.

It is not difficult to persuade people that the first of these two issues is real; just witness the attendance levels we have at our Legal Challenges Seminars or training courses.

But many are still in denial mode about social media. They don’t deny its existence of course; they acknowledge the usefulness and entertainment value of Facebook and all the other social media applications. It is just that they cannot relate this to the day-to-day work of public bodies. It trivialises otherwise serious stuff, and confuses the required rigour of public administration with the much flakier world of online chatter.

These doubters have probably felt vindicated as the weaknesses of social media fuelled successive crises in recent days. First persistent allegations on the internet led to the Government setting up an Inquiry into the much-older Waterhouse Tribunal. Then the TV presenter Philip Schofield tried to embarrass the Prime Minister by passing him a list of names – individuals alleged on the web as paedophiles. Finally, the BBC self-destructs by broadcasting an item without sufficient journalistic checking.

None of this will change the fundamental reality that web-based data is here to stay, and that making sense of it is a challenge. In his brilliant book, Flat Earth News (2008), Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who was later a key figure in the phone-hacking scandal – accurately predicted some of this mess. He chronicled the decline in the number of trained journalists, and worried that those that are left get to rely too heavily on the internet for their stories. The Newsnight debacle was all but predicted!

But consultations are often about interpreting people’s stories. Listen to any focus group, or join table discussions, on topics that affect people and we soon find that people’s views are as often influenced by what they’ve heard or read as by their own direct experience. Until recently, it did not matter if my neighbour thought the world was flat, because she’d read somewhere that it was. But these days, not only has she the ability to circulate this view widely within her network, the Council is probably asking her what she thinks about it!

Seriously though, how we interpret what Jon Bradley, in our Advanced Social Media for Consultation course, calls the River of News, is becoming critical - and there are, as yet, relatively few rules. Such standards as are emerging arise because of high profile faux-pas like last week’s interview with the PM on This Morning. What we are labelling as The Schofield Syndrome is nothing more than the inappropriate use of unvalidated data from the social media rumour mill. But we can be pretty sure it will surface regularly in consultation. Just wait for the alleged lists of ... library closures ... police station closures ... fire station closures ... hospital ward closures, ... GP surgery privatisations ... new unwelcome housing developments ...call centres exporting jobs to India ... sales of playing field ... or MPs taking time off to make trips to Australia! All based on what Philip Schofield called a “momentary, cursory glance at the internet”.

The irony is, of course, that at the very time that campaigners are mounting legal challenges if they think the ‘rules’ are being broken, those ‘rules’ are getting less precise. That is why, to minimise the Schofield Syndrome and the other likely abuses of social media data, we need to put some pegs in the ground. Our newly-developed Code of Practice on the use of social media for consultation is an attempt to do precisely this, and the experience of recent days shows how right we have been to place a special focus on the analysis and interpretation of all this material. If you’re interested, please request a copy. Trigger Points

• How prepared is your organisation for the changing world where social media will influence your work?
• Have your staff being trained in the use (and how not to misuse) social media during public engagement exercises?
• The Institute’s Code of Practice on the use of social media for consultation has been built for use in the Social Media for Consultation training course, but is available to members upon request.
• We will make time in the forthcoming Legal Challenges to Consultation event in Birmingham on 28th November, to consider whether mishandling of social media data can lead to judicial reviews

This is the 224th Tuesday Topic; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement