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DCLG Towns Cities and Regions Webchat
Method(s) Used
Name of person who posted the project: Laura Miller
Location of project: United Kingdom
Date when the project started: 2005
Date when the project ended/project ongoing: 2005
Background to project: Part of the DCLG's work on Towns, Cities and Regions policy is seeking to raise the economic performance of the UK's cities. To do this the DCLG wanted to find out what the visions of cities and towns are, what assets they already have, what the barriers to growth exist and what government can do to help to remove them.
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In May 2005, DCLG ministers took part in a series of summits around England in smaller cities and larger towns where they met with local authority leaders and councillors to discuss the economic performance of these cities. However, there were regions that they were unable to visit due to resource and time restrictions. Real-time webchats were held to facilitate dialogue between the Minister for Local Government and the Secretary of State in those areas where live summits were not possible.
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Purpose of project: DCLG's Urban Policy is about creating better towns and cities in England with:
- healthy economies;
- well-designed homes;
- better public services;
- attractive and safe environments.
The 2000 white paper 'Our Towns and Cities: the Future' sought to usher in a "sustained urban renaissance across the country". To make this happen the DCLG works in partnership with:
- government at all levels;
- local communities;
- the voluntary sector;
- businesses.
Urban Policy is an important part of the department's sustainable communities agenda - improving the construction and design of buildings, ensuring that regeneration and redevelopment benefits everyone in the community, and developing the skills that are needed to ensure this happens.
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The Hansard Society was called on to evaluate the online aspects of the DCLG's deliberation with local authority leaders and councillors around the Urban Policy agenda.
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Project activities: Two real-time webchats based on blog/instant messaging hybrid (third-party build and hosted on external servers).
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The webchats were readable by anyone, but registration was required to contribute and restricted to specific local authority leaders and councillors.
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Project results: Strengths
- Real-time interaction;
- No need of download or installation of software on users� computer or network (with this software);
- Structured discussion;
- Speed of moderation process;
- Ministers could participate in more than one webchat simultaneously;
- Control over closed/open registration and/or participation;
- Policy support team held practice sessions and were familiar with the platform and its interface in advance of the events;
- Range of topics discussed in short timeframe;
- Sense of webchat being an event;
- Ability to quickly transcript discussions;
- Transcripts archived on webchat and corporate departmental site;
- Webchats used to complement rather than replace direct stakeholder meetings;
- Active referencing and visible linking between the departmental web-based (blogs, corporate sites, forum, webchats) and offline channels making good use of audiences and participant bases;
- Numbers of civil servants required to support ministers' participation was under half that for equivalent offline summits.
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Potential for improvement
- Participants unfamiliarity with platform;
- Ministers' unfamiliarity with webchat dynamic and platform;
- Increased familiarity with platform will enable the department to reduce ministerial support team even further;
- Time allotted insufficient for participant demand.
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There was a slight apprehension amongst the policy team supporting the chat due to the unfamiliarity of the technology. This made the process of organising the exercise tense at times. However, a practice simulation within the department greatly helped and showed its benefit when the actual chats took place.
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Overall, these two ministerial webchats proved successful. The real-time nature of the chats provided a useful complement to a series of "offline" summits that took place around England earlier in the month. Where ministerial time is at a premium this relieved pressure on logistical resources, while ensuring that key stakeholders were not excluded.
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The department reported that in future it would have liked to do more briefing with the participants and ministers ahead of the webchats, benefiting the events by bringing more detail into the discussions. In response to queries about the staffing required to support the chats, the department said that this was necessary cover because of the breadth of subject matter and their relative inexperience with the format. It was pointed out that each of the [offline] summits required more than 10 civil servants to coordinate, so by comparison the chats were less resource dependent.
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Based on this engagement process of which the webchats were a part, the department will be developing a generic menu of enabling measures from which local authorities can choose options as part of their Local Authority Agreement negotiations. The aim is to publish this menu in the autumn of 2006.
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The department expressed an interest in running webchats in the future and investing in technology to facilitate online consultation.
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Contact details: eDemocracy Programme,
Hansard Society,
40-43 Chancery Lane
London WC2A 1JA
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e - edemocracy@hansard.lse.ac.uk
t - 020 7438 1222
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