University of Southampton & Wiltshire County Council Design Experiment
Project Description
The overall aim of this Design Experiment is to test an innovative way to stimulate better citizen engagement; to improve the ‘quality’ of deliberation and outputs within the new Area Boards, a key institutional component of the new unitary authority governance model adopted by Wiltshire County Council.
The objectives are to enable Area Boards:
- to step outside and beyond standard agenda items and issues (where appropriate) in order to capture overlooked or neglected challenges in their area;
- to hold quality discussions and achieve informed and considered judgements – accounting for both the concerns of their own communities and the place of these communities within the county and overarching strategies;
- to be inclusive and embed a facilitative leadership style amongst elected members;
- to develop agendas based on real issues within their communities and enable actions and decisions to be made as swiftly as possible;
- to promote communication that is open, interactive and highly focussed;
- to develop a sustainable, cost-effective model for future issue deliberations
The hypothesis is that facilitation of more engaging deliberations can be aided by the production of an audio-visual ‘issue book’ (DVD + moderation guide) Such a book will be introduced into one round of Area Board discussions. Six Area Boards will work through the issue with the book and six without. Ongoing evaluation of the Area Boards will allow for iteration i.e. changes in the mode of facilitation in light of earlier experiences.
Progress to Date (2008/9)
After a number of meetings with key officers and Area Board development managers, the issue identified for discussion has been established: ‘How can the Council best engage local communities in decision-making?’ A range of people including those from ethnic minority groups, young people, the military, people with disabilities, and others who might find it difficult to engage for whatever reason have been identified and are currently being filmed for inclusion in the DVD issue book production. The moderation handbook is also being developed at this time. The first Area Board deliberation will be held on December 1st 2008.
Next steps (2008/9)
- Editing - November
- Deliberation and testing - December and January
- Iteration Workshops - December and January
- Further rollout - April onwards
Outputs (2008/9)
Outputs agreed with Wiltshire County Council to date are: one issue book that may be rolled out to various community groups and uploaded onto their website beyond the life of the project (December 2008); an evaluation report (April 2009) and dissemination of findings in an academic / practitioner conference to be held at the University of Southampton (June 2009).
Link to Policy Briefing produced September 2009
Graham Smith, Gerry Stoker and Corinne Wales
The University of Southampton
October 2008
