MEMORANDUM BY THE HANSARD SOCIETY
ONLINE DISCUSSION ON ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY,
ORGANISED TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE FOR THE COMMONS PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
SELECT COMMITTEE
The Hansard Society has set out to run a series
of online discussions involving groups of citizens and legislators.
The idea is to link citizens' discussion to key areas of parliamentary
deliberation, such as select committee inquiries, legislative
scrutiny committees and All-Party committees. This has called
for much work in explaining the process to members of parliamentary
committees and recruiting appropriate citizens to participate
in the discussions. The first in the series of online discussions,
held in October/November 1999, involved women scientists and engineers
throughout the UK who contributed their expertise and experience
to an inquiry being held by the House of Lords Science & Technology
Committee. In March 2000 the All-Party Domestic Violence Committee
will be taking evidence online from women victims of domestic
violence. Forthcoming online discussions will link to new legislation
on the conduct of referendums and leasehold reform. These discussions
will be evaluated and recommendations for future practice in this
area will be made. As an independent, non-partisan body, concerned
to promote effective parliamentary democracy, the Hansard Society
has taken upon itself the role of organising, moderating and evaluating
this process of experimentation.
To run an online discussion linked to Public
Administration committee's inquiry into "Innovations in Citizens'
Participation in Government." seemed to be an idea subject
to benefit from an online concentrating on the theme of electronic
democracy.
A group of experts and enthusiasts were recruited
by the Hansard Society to participate in an electronic conference
discussing various aspects of e-democracy. The following specific
questions were set at the outset of the discussion:
— How have electronic forms of communication
been used so far by government to enhance citizen participation
in shaping policy or the implementation of government programmes?
How have they been used by non-government organisations?
— What are the practical or democratic
limits on the use of electronic forms of communication for the
discussion and debate of issues which are relevant to a whole
community? To what extent is this likely to affect traditional
forms of representative government?
— What are the prospects for further
developments in electronic communication—including digital
television—to be used to enhance citizen participation in
government further:
Seventy-five people were invited to participate
in the discussion; all agreed to do so. Some were approached because
their work was known to the Hansard Society's Parliament &
Electronic Media programme, others made themselves known to us
after hearing that the discussion was to take place.
The participants came from the following occupational
backgrounds:
| Community networks: |
24 |
| Local/national government: | 17
|
| IT industry: | 9 |
| Media | 8 |
| Academics: | 8 |
| Charities | 6 |
| Politicians: | 3 |
55 were male and 20 were female.
The online discussion began on 24 November and continued
unitl 28 December (it was supposed to close on 24 December, but
ran on a little longer.) Over the four weeks there were 313 messages
contributed by39 people. Fifty-two per cent of participants contributed
at least one message.
The discussion was hosted on the Hansard Society's Democracy
Forum web site: www.democracyforum.org.uk The side included
a number of relevant background documents (which can still be
accessed) and a password-protected discussion forum. The software
used for this discussion enabled participants to follow it on
the web or via email: all contributions to the web forum were
automatically distributed by email to any participant wanting
that and all contributions made via email were automatically placed
in the web forum. This eliminated the long-standing conflict between
the benefits of web-based and email-based discussions by allowing
participants to use either or both. Contributions were not pre-moderated,
partly because one could expect such a group to behave in a responsible
fashion and also because all participants were registered so there
was no scope for anonymous contributions. A moderator, appointed
by the Hansard Society, performed the "chairing" role,
attempting to steer the discussion along lines that would help
to inform the select committee.
MAIN POINTS
OF EVIDENCE
FROM THE
DISCUSSION
The full text of all the discussion is archived at www.democracyforum.org.uk
A detailed summary of the discussion is available separately.
This summary is intended to draw out key points from the discussion
that constitute useful evidence for the Public Administration
select committee. The online discussion tended to range wider
than the terms of the Public Administration inquiry and we have
decided not to include here points of evidence arising from this
broader content. Specifically, such content related to appropriate
technologies for e-democracy projects and public policy issues
concerning the delivery of government services. Both of these
topics are of great importance in addressing broader questions
concerning the new information and communication environment,
but fall beyond the boundaries of a discussion about e-democracy.
Web-based discusions are organised on the basis of "threads".
These are headings for strands—or chapters, to use a literary
analogy—of the unfolding discussion. Each contributor to
the discussion either joins an existing thread to add further
points or starts a new one by giving a discrete heading to their
message. In this way the discussion is organised into subject
areas. In this online discussion, where participants clearly had
many issues to raise and the quality of contributions was very
high, there were many threads (37 with two or more mesages) and
these can serve as a chapter list for the discussion. The most
significant threads (in terms of relevance and number of contributions)
are listed below, organised thematically into three groups:
1. Political Issues:
Opening Government to Citizens
Parliament v Government
MPs' tools for email/knowledge management
Transparency and accountability
Legislation and e-democracy
2. Social issues
Social inclusion
Charity use of internet
Market research on internet usage
Access
Gender
Funding and ownership of community systems
Key points for rural communities
Political benefits of online communities
Problems in getting communities together
3. Evaluating Projects
Evaluating initiatives
Best practices from other countries
Shaping the technology
R&D for e-democracy
Best practices for online discussion
Key points for e-democracy
Online deliberative democracy
Digital TV.
POLITICAL ISSUES
Two related themes were predominant in this strand of the
discussion: the provision by government (mainly local authorities)
of electronic information and communication channels; and ways
of making representative bodies more accountable to citizens.
Several local government web sites were noted for publishing
public consultation papers on the internet. These included Oxfordshire,
Suffolk, Hampshire, Poole, Brent, Newham and Lewisham. Sue Webb
of Coventry and Warwickshire News Online reported that in a recent
online consultation about the Coventry Community Development Plan
copies of the plan were downloaded by users 600 times in the first
week.
Alex Bax, Convenor of the London Boroughs Information Network,
considered that once a culture of government transactions develops
it will be easier to draw citizens in to online local deliberation
and decision-making. Roger Wilson, a government IT consultant,
suggested that local authorities establish local TV channels that
"would allow planning applications to be viewed and debated
on TV; that this could feedback to the planning committee; that
we could cover the committee meetings; and enable viewers to respond
to questions raised by councillors—even to the point of
taking a poll." Julie Zielstra, of the London Voluntary Service
Council, reported on LVSC's plan to create "a sophisticated
ICT system (Action Link London) that will be based on the web
and will be able to support consultation, discussion and referenda."
It is proposed that this will serve as a communication portal
linking voluntary sector organisations with the new London Civic
Forum, GLA and Mayor's Office.
Dan Jellinek, a Guardian journalist and editor of
the Internet Intelligence Bulletin (www.iib.com) reported
on his project to evaluate local council web sites. His initial
findings were that
(i) There is an unacceptable variation in the quality
of local government web sites. Some have no site at all still;
others have little more than a few brochures and a telephone directory
online, still more have a small corner of a commercial site which
is often insufficient and inappropriate. Some strong direction
is urgently needed from central government to ensure all public
service bodies offer web services of a minimum quality, and that
are fully accessible;
(ii) Only a very few pioneers are actually building in
a good degree of interactivity to their services, like services
where you enter your postcode and can find out your nearest recycling
point for example. But in future all information will have to
be interactive and customisable in this way, and again it is vital
that councils are at the very least made strongly aware of the
importance of this;
(iii) The Holy Grail is for actual "transactional"
sites—which offer real services online without recourse
to other media, for example online payment of council tax by credit
card, renewal of a library book online via an online catalogue;
reporting a street light fault online, and so on. There are still
security issues here and so the need is not quite so urgent, but
in the next year or two all councils must work towards online
services of real value;
(iv) Public service sites must have a user focus, not
a corporate focus. It is astonishing how many councils obscure
the contents (sometimes quite useful) of their web sites by hiding
them beneath index structures which correspond to council departments—so
for example you have to gues that council tax comes under the
Corporate Support Department, or dustbin collection under Environmental
Services. Sites must arrange information instead by topic, type
of user or even "life episode" such as getting married
or visiting the doctor;
(v) Public bodies usually do not make good enough use
of external linkage in their web sites. It is an essential part
of providing a good online public service in an area to research
thoroughly what other online resources exist, including public
bodies, voluntary or charitable sites and sites put up by local
individuals or companies—and link to them. A link to their
home page is generally not good enough either—links should
go straight to the relevant page.
Dr David Newman of Queen's University, Belfast argued that
there are three stages to a government strategy of becoming more
open to citizens:
(i) Providing government information to citizens online.
This is already being done reasonably well by www.open.gov.uk,
www.nics.gov.uk and others, although few really set about designing
the information delivery to match citizen needs rather than government
structure (except Portugal and Victoria);
(ii) Interactive service delivery, where much could be
learnt from private sector experience in electronic commerce.
I have in front of me a copy of the report by Simsion Bowles and
Associates for the Department of Premier and Cabinet (of the state
government of Victoria), "Online service delivery: Lessons
of experience". They went around interviewing people who
had attempted to deliver services online, finding out what were
the key things they wish they had known when they started. Also,
beware of commonly accepted ideas of what can best be done face-to-face
and online. There are counter examples (eg on-line disease support
groups) and some research with surprising results. Some of my
own work found more critical thinking in computer conferencing
than in face-to-face seminars;
(iii) Facilitating public participation in policy-making
and decision implementation. This is what a number of governments
are struggling with now. The great advantage of computer-mediated
communications is that they allow rapid feedback from citizens,
far quicker than you get from setting up a focus group: yet still
allowing dialogue to clarify the meanings of the messages. Those
TV producers who dared invite online discussions of their programmes
were initially shocked by the number and nature of the comments
they got, but later came to appreciate the sheer inventiveness
of the public, and used their suggestions to improve their programme
(eg Illuminations, who produce The Net). Public service
can benefit in the same way, if different levels of government
focus on enabling and supporting rapid feedback and ideas generation.
My advice: concentrate on benefiting from the strengths of electronic
consultation at this early, experimental, stage, rather than worrying
too much about the weaknesses.
Steven Clift, who founded the Minnesota E-Democracy project,
widely regarded as a beacon of best practice, suggested that the
main value of e-democracy is not in the executive (government
delivery) wing of governance, but the legislative wing where links
between legislators and the citizens they represent can be strengthened:
"What legislatures, parliaments, councils, advisory commissions,
etc do to use the Internet as an official input into their deliberative
processes is an area we need to develop with gusto and vision.
This is not replacing in-person or traditional activities, but
about complementing and opening up processes to overcome time-specific
and geographic barriers."
Several contributors considered best practices for representatives
who use new information and communication technologies (ICTs.)
Victor Perton, an Australian MP and Shadow Minister of Multimedia
in Victoria, pointed to his use of automated email sorting. In
relation to email overload, tools such as Lotus Notes were recommended,
as used by the Irish Government. A Swedish contributor reported
that some MPs in Sweden receive up to 300 emails per day. Andrew
Hobbs, of the Post Office, expressed an interest in the problem
of email overload and pointed out that "the best companies
now use automated email reply services based on content analysis
of messages received." Hobbs sees a potential role for the
Post Office "in helping to facilitate citizen access to MPs,
local councillors and ombudsmen as an impartial and trusted channel
to government." Steven Clift from Minnesota raised a number
of imaginative proposals for research on this subject (see link
to www.e-groups.com/group/do-wire/245.html?)
Contributors did not tend to see ICTs as utopian or technocratic
quick-fixes for political democracy. There was a prevalent recognition
that political benefits would only occur online if they were rooted
in a healthy democratic culture in the "real" world.
Lee Jasper, of Operation Black Vote, argued that "E-democracy,
if it simply mirrors existing "democratic" activity,
will simply reflect the deep alienation from the political process
experienced by many communities." Bill Thompson, a veteran
UK net-activist, who helped to run the virtual think tank Nexus,
argued that "we can't just transplant the existing failing
democratic process on to the internet, stick an e on the front
and expect the world to be a better place. Those institutions
that attempt to do this will find that the people expect something
different."
Only one contributor attempted to scrutinise the concept
of e-democracy: Brian Loader, of the Community Informatics Research
and Applications Unit (CIRA) at the University of Teeside, urged
the discussion participants to recognise the conflicting agendas
of different players in the political process: "For example,
many politicians have no interest in giving a voice to some or
all of the demos. Their interpretation of the new technology will
be how it can be used to filter and enable them to set their agendas.
How they can gain advantage from it and what threats it poses.
In a different case communities and individuals will attempt to
shape the technologies to try and wrest power from traditional
institutions. Again, the commercial sector has an interest in
shaping technologies which are most profitable regardless of how
it affects democracy . . . There is nothing new in (this) interpretation
of democratic politics and the interaction between these parties
will produce a negotiated outcome. Why then does our understanding
of democratic politics fail to make much of an impact upon the
discussion of e-democracy which is often presented in a political
vacuum?" This was followed up by a series of questions put
by the moderator, intended to link the political assessment of
e-democracy projects to more traditional questions of democratic
theory, but these were not taken up by participants. In general,
there was an implicit belief running through the discussion that
ICTs could increase citizen-participation and that this in itself
would enhance democracy.
SOCIAL ISSUES
There is a widespread assumption that access to ICTs will
continue to expand to the point of near-universality. At the moment
access is far from being universal and several contributors addressed
this problem.
Andrew Collinge of MORI presented evidence on citizens' access
to ICTs from MORI's October 1999 survey: 26 per cent have internet
access, with 18 per cent having access in their own homes; 37
per cent own a mobile phone; 8 per cent have access to interactive
digital TVs in their homes. Data from the People's Panel shows
the telephone as being the most popular means of transacting with
government (72 per cent), ahead of the PC (35 per cent) and interactive
TV (16 per cent). Andrew Collinge thinks that "digital interactive
television will offer the greatest opportunity over the next few
years for the provision of government services" and observes
that, unlike internet users, DTV users tend not to come mainly
from the middle class. Peter Thompson of Wolverhampton Council
referred to research conducted by the University of Central England
in the seven metropolitan districts of the West Midlands. They
found that many citizens have negative perceptions of councils
and their quality of service; they believe ICTs can deliver better
service, and are generally willing and able to use it, although
some still need help in terms of access and training; those who
have actually used ICT facilities such as council web sites are
often disappointed with what they find; councils need to take
this issue more seriously and make the changes necessary to deliver
better service through ICTs. Although this research was mainly
about service delivery rather than citizen involvement, "one
of the main criticisms was that Councils don't listen to their
citizens."
Sonia Liff, of Warwick University, who has been carrying
out ESRC-funded research into community access points to ICTs,
suggested that "Providing access is much more than having
equipment available for people to use. It is about motivating
people to want to get involved, making them feel comfortable about
doing so, helping them get started and learn more, and encouraging
communication and participation to shape the information society."
Julie Zielstra gave an interesting example of an East London youth
project connecting young people to local councillors and other
officials which failed because it was not funded for long enough
to win the trust of the young people. Irving Rappaport, the founder
of UK Citizens Online Democracy, outlined the following reasons
for people not participating in online discussions:
1. Lack of time (by far the most common reason);
2. Technical difficulties;
3. Lack of computer or internet access while away from
their office or home;
4. Forgetfulness—because online discussion . . .
was too new to feature as part of their normal daily routine;
5. Lack of confidence with email and/or web discussion;
6. Reluctance to state their views in an open forum.
Some contributors discussed specific cases of social exclusion.
Marion Scott of Women Connect emphasised the specific needs of
women and urged policy-makers to "accept that women and specific
sub-groups of women (including young women, rural women, older
women, lesbians, disabled women, black and minority ethnic women,
migrants, refugees, single mothers) have particular or multiple,
interrelating needs and most certainly still experience disadvantage,
discrimination or social exclusion." Lee Jaspers of Operation
Black Vote stated that for e-democracy to have any meaning projects
would need to be built within existing communities as a means
of empowering them. Emma Aldridge of Age Concern outlined specific
problems of access to ICTs facing older people, including the
cost of equipment and training to get the best out of new technologies
and poor design creating difficulties relating to physical operation.
She proposed "More public access points . . . targeted at
older people . . . via community/day care centres/GP surgeries/social
housing associations/schools, colleges etc. Phil Grierson, who
runs the web site for the Young People's Parliament (www.ypp.org.uk),
provided information about a range of online discussions being
run for young people. He stated that "Our initial experiences
suggest that the new communications technologies offer stimulating
new ways of engaging, and re-engaging, a wide range of young people
who, for all sorts of reasons, are excluded from mainstream consultation
and participation opportunities."
EVALUATING PROJECTS
There was a general recognition that e-democracy projects
are still in an experimental phase. The technology is likely to
change, with TV and other applications supplementing or possibly
replacing the PC as the principal medium of interactivity. Best
practices still need to be established. Lessons can be learned
from other parts of the world. A prevalent mood of learning and
evolving was characteristic of the discussion.
Most contributors expressed the view that developing public
participation via ICTs was primarily a problem of political culture
rather than technology. Indeed, the technologists were eager to
conduct research into ways of making it easier to facilitate open
discussion. Andrew Mitchell of BT urged participants to "Come
up with what needs to be done and the technology will be there
to do it."
Several examples from around the world of successful e-democracy
experiments were discussed. Michael Gurstein, director of the
Centre for Community Informatics at the Technical University of
British Columbia, cited the Campaign for Local Democracy (C4LD)
in Toronto, Canada and Jesse Ventura's online campaign in Minnesota.
David Newman cited the Minnesota e-democracy project (www.e-democracy.org)
and the Rete Civiche Bologna project. John Gotze, of the Swedish
Agency for Administrative Development, reported on several local
Swedish e-democracy projects and, at a national level, the (Swedish)
Commission on Democracy in the 21st Century which has published
much material on e-democracy.
Dan Jellinek observed that "As more people come online,
it has perhaps already become impractical to have any kind of
meaningful open national debate: hence debates such as this one
pick a few people to debate in a password-controlled area."
The need for effective discussion mediation was raised by several
contributors as a way of ensuring that public debate could be
ordered and meaningful. Alastair McIntyre, who runs the Electronic
Scotland and Falkirk Today web sites (www.electronicscotland.com
and www.falkirk.net) regarded BBC Online's discussion forum rules
(www.bbc.co.uk) as an example of best practice.
Professor James Fishkin of the University of Texas, Austin
offered an account of the 16 deliberative polls that he has pioneered,
thus far in collaboration with traditional media. He was interested
in setting up an online deliberative poll which "could offer
a supplement to other consultations online a) because we could
know it was representative (and not captured by some intense group
or other) and b) because it would represent the public's informed
or considered judgements (not top of the head judgements or even
phantom opinions.) For these reasons it would be a public voice
worth listening to and worth adding to the dialogue for use by
members of Parliament on specific issues (particularly those issues
where the public has not been well-informed.)" Fishkin is
of the view that the problem of democratic access to interactive
technologies will soon be overcome and that "it is worth
laying the groundwork now for pilot versions that would demonstrate
the viability of future versions of online democracy." Fishkin's
proposal was supplemented by useful comments from other contributors
and the Hansard Society now plans to run an online deliberative
poll.
ANALYSIS OF
THE DISCUSSION
PROCESS
The object of this online discussion was for a group of people
with expertise in the field of e-democracy to deliberate extensively
over a one month period with a view to learning from one another
and informing the thinking of a parliamentary select committee.
The success of the exercise can be determined by the extent to
which it met this object.
Before the online discussion commenced several assumptions
were made:
— An online discussion would enable a broader group
of experts to be brought together than would be the case for most
select committee inquiries;
— The discussion participants would set their own
agenda on the basis of knowledge and experience;
— The discussion participants would be able to offer
evidence based directly upon personal experience.
Other assumptions of a more critical nature, that could have
been made at the outset, but were not, include:
— The participants would be more interested in giving
their opinions than listening to or learning from others;
— Much of the discussion would be devoted to implicit
or explicit lobbying of parliamentarians;
— A few dedicated individuals would dominate the
discussion.
How valid were any of these assumptions?
It is clearly the case that the range of sources of evidence
in this online discussion was broader than is usually the case
when select committees receive evidence from live witnesses. (It
is true that contributors to this online discussion were not technically
giving evidence, but their role was similar to witnesses.) The
most obvious reason for this was the capacity of the internet
to include participants from any part of the world at no extra
cost. In this discussion there were key contributions from Canada,
the USA, Australia and Sweden. There were also participants from
France and Finland. The cost of bringing these contributors to
London would have been prohibitive and could be seen as wasteful
if it were only for a short session with a parliamentary committee.
In this case participants had a month to deliberate, giving them
time to think about the subject, what others had to say and what
they themselves wanted to say. The participants came from a wide
range of occupational and social backgrounds and almost a third
had experience of working in online community networks at the
grass-roots level.
Participants did set their own agenda to a great extent.
A large part of the moderator's job was to steer the discussion
along the lines of the agenda agreed with the committee. Most
of the issues on this agenda were addressed by contributors to
the discussion. But there was clear evidence that participants
were reading one another's contributions and responding to them.
On average, each message submitted was read 44 times. Forty-six
per cent of messages contained an explicit response to a previous
contribution and 24 per cent referred to previous contributions
without responding to them. This suggests that participants were
setting a collective agenda and engaging in genuine exchanges
rather than mere speech-making. So, the assumption that participants
would be more interested in giving their views than listening
to others lacks evidence.
Participants did not seem particularly interested in lobbying
parliamentarians. Although they knew that their discussion was
linked to a parliamentary inquiry, they seemed to be more interested
in talking to one another than addressing MPs. Only 22 per cent
of messages contained any policy proposals and of these 3.6 per
cent were aimed at a community level and 3.95 at local authorities—only
4.3 per cent were specifically aimed at national Government or
Parliament.
The assumption that a few contributors would dominate the
discussion was more true than we would have believed at the outset.
One hundred and ten out of the 313 contributions came from just
three people. Although this constitutes almost one-third of all
messages posted, the average number of messages submitted by each
contributor was 7.2 and the average number from all participants
was 3.7. In most meetings of 75 people it would be rare for over
half to have their say in the course of the discussion. The one-month
duration of the discussion allowed time for people to offer considered
contributions and to supplement these with further thought or
evidence where necessary.
Participants were able to draw upon empirical evidence and
personal experience: 16 per cent of contributions included reference
to the former and 27 per cent to the latter. The internet is famous
for not respecting borders and this was true of this discussion:
12 per cent of messages included links to other web sites, provided
to offer broader evidence for a point of view than could have
been fitted into one contribution.
These results suggest that this was in many ways a model
of successful online discussion. There was a high rate of participation
from an interesting range of people who were clearly listening
to and learning from one another while attempting to inform the
Public Administration Select Committee. Of course, the participant
group was in no sense typical, in that most were very familiar
with both the technology and form of electronic discussions. Nonetheless,
we anticipate that interactive communication technologies will
become generally accessible and that skills of online public discussion
may develop as part of education for engaged citizenship.
(Dr) Stephen Coleman
Director, Hansard Society Electronic Democracy Programme
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