Originally published 3 January 2006. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
We've just passed the 2005 deadline for e-enabling the citizens' interactions with Government and its agencies.
Beyond the predictable and competing claims of success by the programme's supporters and carping criticisms from its opponents, it is worth remembering that the whole e-government initiative has been a journey into the unknown. In historic terms, five years is a very short time, but the pace of technological change has been relentless, and in hindsight this has been mostly a leap of faith.
For consultation and other public participation applications, it is worth recalling some of the arguments which have raged. Service providers in Local Government and elsewhere struggled with tight budgets whilst watching ICT departments showered with money they never requested just to build websites that no-one used. Then there were issues about the digital divide. In one breath, public bodies were being told to be more inclusive and seek the views of the hard-to-reach; in another they were being urged to use forms of e-consultation which effectively disenfranchised half the population! Two approaches evolved. Some Councils took the view that, apart from isolated experiments with e-surveys to complement traditional methods (just enough to tick the box in an IEG statement!), this was not the time to commit heavily to new e-consultation tools. This is the wait-and-see approach; by all means e-enable the collection of Council tax, but rely on tried-and-tested techniques when it comes to consultation.
Others, notably Bristol and Councils involved in the National Local e-democracy project, took a different view. They openly experimented so that they could build sufficient experience of what works and what doesn't and intercept increased demand as it approaches what's now called the tipping point. That phrase was coined by Malcolm Gladwell in a 2000 management bestseller of the same name, and in it he explains it as a magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviours cross a particular threshold.
Will 2006 prove to be the year when e-consultation crosses such a threshold and becomes mainstream? The Government certainly seems to be changing its priorities - away from the applications-led national projects and towards increased take-up of e-services. Hopefully, the last five years will have given many public bodies an excellent foundation upon which to build, but any examination of Public Service websites shows that they have strengths in different areas - and very few have given e-consultation a priority. In part this reflects the immaturity of the applications. A more persuasive explanation is, however, the continuing nervousness of Chief Officers, many of whom are still to be convinced of the role which new technology can play in an effective public or stakeholder consultation programme.
Certainly, with every month that passes, leading edge organisations in the public sector are growing in confidence and learning how best to use new technology. 2006 is the moment to take stock, review progress and develop investment and training plans and, although 2005 may have been the end of the current programme, 2006 may well be the true beginning of widespread and effective e-consultation.
Trigger points
- Look out for the Institute's Analysis of Local Authority consultation web pages
- In the meantime, review your current e-consultation applications; are they what you need?
- Ensure that Chief Officers receive authoritative Briefings or training as a confidence-building measure.
This is the 50th 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