This document discusses implementing citizen engagement for government budget consultation using online tools. It describes Open North, a nonprofit that builds websites to help governments engage citizens. An example is provided of the Plateau Mont-Royal borough of Montreal using Open North's budget simulator to consult residents on its budget. Key benefits of the online consultation included lower costs than offline options, higher participation rates, and residents providing specific, quantifiable feedback to help shape budget decisions. The document outlines best practices for online consultations, such as promoting the consultation widely and following up to share results.
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Public Engagement & Consultation Summit
1. Implementing Meaningful Citizen Engagement Under
Time and Resource Constraints
Public Consultation & Engagement Summit
November 8, 2012
2. What is Open North?
• Canadian nonprofit that builds websites to help
governments and citizens engage with each other
• Follows two main strategies:
1. Improve access to government information
2. Make participation easy, meaningful and fun
4. Comparison
Online Consultation Offline Consultation
• specific, quantifiable answers from • answers in a variety of formats from
simulations survey questions with limited
choices
• centralized access to citizen’s input • input distributed across many
channels
5. Comparison
Online Consultation Offline Consultation
• generate results quickly regardless • dependent on the availability of time
of timing and a specific location
• can obtain the same level of detail • detail of answers may vary from
from each participant participant to participant
6. Comparison
Online Consultation Offline Consultation
• one time cost to set up, host, and • need to hire individual staff to
deliver responses interact with residents and record
answers
7. Evaluating Online Tools
How can an online tool help a municipality engage its
residents in its budget process?
Evaluation Criteria
• Shorter consultation process
• Lower implementation costs
• Less demand on human resources
• Same or greater participation
• Same or greater satisfaction among residents
10. Preparation
Choose the right data
• Let citizens play with the real numbers to help them
understand the tradeoffs necessary to balance a
budget
• Validate the data you will consult on with elected
officials to ensure that the municipality will be asking
questions that matter now
11. Preparation
Ask good questions
• Ask about concrete changes to services – changes
to the library’s hours, not changes to its total budget
• Limit questions to the subjects that residents care
about most
• Make clear how changes to the budget will affect
service levels
• Offer residents a scale of options – ask how much to
spend on new library books, not whether to spend
• Use everyday language – avoid jargon
12. Results
• Out of 100,000 residents:
• Over 4,400 visited the consultation’s website
• Over 700 submitted in 2012, up from 415 in 2011
• In 2011, 49% of submissions were made in the first
week, and 73% in the first half of the 2-month process
• Positive response from residents and local media
13. Results
• Residents want results: 70% opposed a new general
local tax, but two-thirds approved of a new local tax
tied to a specific capital project
14. Benefits: Realistic Demands
• Challenges residents to satisfy their priorities while
balancing the budget
• Puts citizens in the shoes of elected officials whose
job it is to do the same
Thanks to this unique online tool, citizens can engage in an
educational exercise similar to the budget choices we face.
At the end of the consultation, we will be able to make
choices that take into account people's concerns.
Luc Ferrandez, Plateau Mont-Royal mayor
15. Benefits: Clear Reporting
• Automatically creates easy-to-read
reports, which clearly state the
aggregate results
• Collects demographic information
so you can understand local trends
and identify communities of interest
• No stack of paper surveys to
process, or free-text emails to
categorize and analyze
16. Benefits: Easy for Residents
• Convenient – Residents participate at a time and
place of their choice
• No time limit – No need to raise your hand and wait to
be recognized
• No pressure – Read up on issues before voicing your
opinion (and don’t worry about public speaking)
17. Keys to a great consultation
Spread the word
• Announce the consultation at a public meeting, and
time it with a press release to get media coverage
• Link to it on your municipality’s website
• Promote it on Facebook and Twitter
• Use your municipal newsletter
Sources of traffic for BudgetPlateau.com
18. Keys to a great consultation
Follow up
• Announce the key results of the consultation
• Explain how the results affect your decisions
• Tell participants about other ways to engage, like
upcoming public meetings
19. Resources
Participedia www.participedia.net
ParticipateDB www.participatedb.com
Digital Engagement Cookbook www.digitalengagement.org
Digital Engagement Guide www.digitalengagement.info
Your Local Budget www.yourlocalbudget.org
Participatory Budgeting Project www.participatorybudgeting.org
Open North www.opennorth.ca
Citizen Budget www.citizenbudget.com
Beth Noveck: TED Talk on Government as a Platform
http://www.ted.com/talks/beth_noveck_demand_a_more_open_source_government.html
Editor's Notes
- thank you Jim for moderating, and the conference organizers for inviting me to speak on behalf of Open North\n- I’m very excited to be here\n
- Open North is a Montreal-based non-profit that was started in May 2011 \n- our suite of products and services focus around two strategies and concerns: can we improve access to information for citizens and civil society and can we make participation, easy, meaningful and fun. \n- we believe in this mission because we know that with resources, citizens are capable of enacting the change they wish to see in the world and can do so efficiently\n
- today we’re together to talk about how to create meaningful engagement under time and resource constraints\n- I’m sure that when you think “new tool” one of your first thoughts must be “well that must cost something” or “wont that be another headache I need to manage”\n- we at Open North are clear in our mission that technology is not a silver bullet, but it has some very important advantages that distinguish it\n- lets take a look at some of these differences\n
- one of the greatest difficulties faced by government interested in reaching out to citizens is organizing the time and space to conduct consultations\n- although in-person consultations allow you to come face-to-face with your citizens, converting the information you receive into something you can use is a challenge\n- input may be written down, verbal, in email, in comments: all over the place\n- further, a room of 25 citizens, may only have 5 citizens giving feedback and input, meaning that truly, you’re only meeting with 5 voices. \n- more basically, to conduct these consultations you have to ensure staff is available, and a room is available, of which the costs can fluctuate and change due to a variety of scheduling issues.\n- the best part of online consultations is that theres a one-time cost to set up, host and deliver responses, even if your consultation runs for 2 months. \n
\n
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- for our case study, we want to look at making a municipality’s budget review process fun, easy, and meaningful\n- what makes a great online consultation?\n- here is the criteria we use to judge our project, Citizen Budget, which was first used by the Plateau Mont-Royal borough of Montreal\n
- as I mentioned, like any form of engagement with citizens, to make it meaningful, as in to actually benefit both residents and the processes of governance, requires “buy-in” from city hall\n- to get great data from citizens, regardless of whether its on the go on a mobile device, or speaking one on one in an office, we need to be able to understand peoples preferences and explain how the government works\n\n
- the plateau is a neighbourhood of 100,000 Montrealers, it is one of the most high density neighbourhoods in the country and home to many artists, students, and young families. \n\n
- Citizen Budget is a online customizable budget simulator that allows you to consult residents on the their budget priorities\n- it puts residents in the shoes of elected officials who have to balance the budget and creates an understanding of the trade-offs required to balance the budget\n- I would like to now show you how Citizen Budget works, with a quick demonstration\n
- dialoguing with elected officials throughout the setup process is important to ensure “buy-in” at all levels\n- consultations should help to work towards the goals of the city, not just be an “add-on” or “requirement” but rather something that makes budget decisions easier\n\n
- give examples of questions\n- explain how our sliders, on/off, radio buttons, give the right options for the right questions\n\n
- I went to the Plateau’s September announcement at the borough offices to residents about the results of the simulator \n- two weeks/1 month is short\n\n
\n
- the data exemplified that residents are looking for results, concrete activities/action from the city\n\n
- so, what online consultation can offer is: clearly expressed priorities and a great sense of understanding of what the city is doing \n
- clear reporting means efficiency and clarity, which in turn benefit future consultations\n- *Actionable**\n
- the key resource that goes into a citizen budget simulation is municipal data, which regardless of which format you choose to consult your citizens, you will need to generate meaningful answers\n- Citizen Budget helps you find the right things to ask\n
So, how can you get the most of an online consultation?\n- sharing is a priority\n- we found that 22% of respondents for the plateau came straight from facebok\n
- online and offline consultation share a key trait: awareness of the city’s initiative is crucial to increasing participation\n- online consultations simply give the city a better chance of achieving this\n
\n
- validate participation\n
NOTES:\n- look at the crowd!\n- reset as opposed to stumbling\n- \n
