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DWP Welfare Reform Forum
Method(s) Used
Name of person who posted the project: Laura Miller
Location of project: United Kingdom
Date when the project started: 2006
Date when the project ended/project ongoing: 2006
Background to project: Since coming into office in 1997, the Labour Government has embarked on a series of reforms to the UK's welfare state. These reforms set out to develop the UK's welfare system to accommodate demographic change and globalisation, and encourage economic growth and social inclusion.
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The Department for Work and Pensions launched its Green Paper, 'A new deal for welfare: Empowering people to work', on Tuesday 24 January 2006. The publication of the green paper marked the beginning of what the Government hoped would be a national debate on the future direction of welfare reforms.
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Purpose of project: The Welfare Reform policy team was concerned that conventional methods of consultation would principally draw responses from organisations, service providers and representative groups. Although it wished to engage these parties, it was also eager to explore how open, deliberative online consultation might encourage private individuals to participate, particularly those with direct experience of the welfare system who might provide insights not otherwise available to the team.
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The online consultation asked the public to suggest ways that the government could help people who are able to work to get back into the workforce. The exercise was also designed to explore ways of making the benefits system easier and fairer.
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Project activities: The online forum was set up to discuss some of the ideas contained in the Green Paper. The forum topics centered on four themes:
- Helping ill and disabled people back to work - activities people could do to get them back to work;
- Helping ill and disabled people back to work - encouraging people to try out part-time work;
- Single parents - Money and help through the Work-Related Activity Premium: is paying it for 6 months long enough?
- Single parents - Money and help through the Work-Related Activity Premium: is 11 the right qualifying age?
Project results: Strengths
- Accessibility standards achieved by the site;
- Clarity of site copy (derived from �Easy Read� version of consultation paper);
- Glossary of terms in resources section.
Potential for improvement
- Small number of registrations and participants;
- Absence of policy teams in forum. Participation was left to the department's Consultation Coordinator;
- Short lead-in time for site preparation and promotion;
- Lack of reference to online consultation in consultation response document.
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The DWP's welfare reform forum represented an intriguing opportunity for the department to interact with users of its services that it had previously only had indirect contact with. The department was unsure if its customers would respond to the opportunity but was willing to experiment with this application alongside established consultation routes. Effort was put into ensuring that the site was accessible and that its content was direct and easy to follow.
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The forum attracted a diverse participant base - ranging from those with disabilities to MPs. From the participant surveys, it emerged that the majority of these individuals (85%) had used online forums and message-boards in the past but that this was their first government consultation (83%). This familiarity with e-communication combined with an interest in the policy area created a pool of participants willing and able to engage with the department.
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However, the forum did not take advantage of this potential and the overall participation rates were disappointing. Partly, this is because there was insufficient marketing of the forum. Though the participant base was varied, it was also small.
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Raising the profile of the forum further would have required a strategic marketing campaign. Leafleting, posters in benefit centres or adverts on local radio may have helped drive up registrations and may have brought the forum to the attention of those people who the department wanted to involve in the consultation forum.
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Increasing registrations is an important factor, but it is also important to then turn registration into participation. Many people signed up to spectate rather than post their own contributions. However, evaluation of the use of online forums by Parliament demonstrated that when representatives of the inquiry or consultation owners deliberate with the public it positively impacts on the participation rate.
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The DWP was represented by a consultation coordinator in the forum but this was irregular and the coordinator, though not lacking in enthusiasm, did not have the necessary depth of policy knowledge required to respond directly to participants� questions and views. Involvement of policy officials would have improved the user experience and quality of deliberation.
Marketing and staffing resources would have helped this forum. Though supported by policy officials, it was managed by the Consultation Coordinator. This absence of policy ownership became most apparent when the consultation response paper was published. It made only passing reference to the forum and the transcripts of the deliberation that took place were not included either in the paper or on the main departmental site.
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This means that the forum participants have little or no idea of the influence of their participation and could challenge the openness of this policy area and the willingness of the department to embrace customer input.
In feedback, most participants stated that they registered because they wanted the opportunity to share their views, to access and debate the views of others and to engage with the department without intermediation by the media. However, there was concern that the forum was a "tick box" exercise designed to give the appearance of consultation.
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In post-consultation surveys, participants said that they were disappointed by the low levels of interaction between participants and policy team representatives. They were, however, appreciative of those responses they did receive.
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When reflecting on the exercise, the department detailed a number of aspects it would approach differently with the benefit of hindsight. There was concern that the right questions had not been asked; the questions asked online had been adapted from those designed for written submissions.
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The department would have liked to have targeted these better and adapted their wording for the online medium. The duration of the forum was also felt to be too short and the promotional activity too scant.
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Nevertheless, the department was content with the number of registrants (the consultation had a total of 624 submissions through all its channels). They were interested to see that some of those who made submissions through conventional means also made posts in the forum (anecdotally observed, unsubstantiated in post-consultation surveys).
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The Government published a response to the consultation on its green paper on Monday 19 June 2006 reflecting the consultation feedback. The online forum is referred to in the introduction of the consultation report; however, no further mention is made. The report uses quotes lifted from the submissions but does not use any from the forum's participants. No transcripts appeared in the reports annex, or on the Welfare Reform pages of the DWP website.
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The government published its Welfare Reform Bill on 4 July 2006, which builds on the Welfare Reform green paper and the subsequent consultation report.
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The DWP has expressed an interest in further exploration of online methods of consultation. Around its Pension Reform consultation it has incorporated blogging and webchat applications with assurances on the site that all comments will be taken into account as part of the formal consultation process. An RSS feed has also been incorporated to help interested parties keep up to date with changes to site content (see www.dwp.gov.uk/pensionsreform/forum).
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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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