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The Review of the Funding of Political Parties Forum
Method(s) Used
Name of person who posted the project: Kerry Ryan
Location of project: United Kingdom
Date when the project started: 2006
Date when the project ended/project ongoing: 2006
Background to project: Sir Hayden Phillips was asked to conduct an independent review of the funding of political parties. In particular, the Review was to look into:
- The case for public funding of political parties;
- The transparency of political parties' funding.
The Review was asked to report to the government by the end of December 2006 with any recommendations for change.
Purpose of project: The forum formed part of the engagement and opinion-seeking activity undertaken by the Review.
The purpose of the forum was to allow Sir Hayden Phillips and his team to engage with members of the public in a dialogue on the key issues. The forum was run prior to the formation of policy proposals, and afterwards following publication of an interim report.
Project activities:
The website was an online deliberative forum.
Registration was required by those seeking to contribute, but the forums were available for general reading. The core user base was UK citizens.
Pre-moderation was carried out by the Review team, members of which also posted into the forum to facilitate deliberation.
Discussion on the website was structured around themes set by the Review. New themes were opened each week; there were only two themes live at any point: these were:
- Objectives of the Review (July 25 to August 4);
- Caps on donations (July 31 to August 11);
- Trade unions and party finances (August 7 to August 18);
- Limits on expenditure (August 14 to August 25);
- Are you involved? (August 21 to September 1);
- State funding (August 28 to September 8);
- How should party funding be accountable to you? (September 4 to September 15);
- What do you think the future party funding system should look like? (September 18 to October 6).
In addition to public and stakeholder participants, the Review invited subject experts (�Opinion Leaders�) to participate in the forum by providing information and assisting in the facilitation of debate.
Project results: Strengths
- The Review�s methods were independent of the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Consultations;
- Input from public and stakeholders was sought early on in the Review;
- Public and experts were invited to deliberate together;
- The Review team provided feedback to participants and contributed to the discussions in a facilitation role;
- The Review team posted regular discussion summaries;
- The weekly initiation of new discussion topics maintained momentum;
- There was continuity between discussion topics.
Potential for improvement:
- Frequency of input from experts was lower than anticipated by Review team;
- More encouragement to get involved should be given to those who are not politically motivated. This could have been achieved through more strategic communications and marketing;
- There should have been greater use of links to related websites, blogs and forums as on the main Party Funding Review website;
- More background information should have been made available to users on the forum site itself.
Contact details: http://forum.partyfundingreview.gov.uk/
Source; 'Digital Dialogues Second Phase report' - Hansard Society/Ministry of Justice 2007
eDemocracy Programme,
Hansard Society,
40-43 Chancery Lane
London WC2A 1JA
e - edemocracy@hansard.lse.ac.uk
t - 020 7438 1222
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