The discussion focused on the challenges and opportunities in boosting participation, consultation, and engagement in digital democracy. The main questions that were asked are listed below along with a summary of the key points.
What has been the impact of technical challenges on democracy? Do councils have the resources/capacity to go beyond business as usual and innovate?
The Covid-19 pandemic initially pushed councils to embrace digital technology but there was a concern that now the tide has ‘fallen away’. Smaller digital tools are managing to be adopted by some councils, but delegates highlighted the challenges in adopting more digital tools and carrying out remote meetings when these are not currently enforced, and it feels like ‘tinkering at the edges.’
Negative experiences were shared of cultural attitudes in some councils of both elected members and councils as a whole being against digital transformation thus acting as a barrier to the delivery of digital solutions. For example: The hesitancy over the scrutiny that comes with such transparency; Having to fight for simple digitalisation of travel forms; The insistence on paper copies from councillors and senior management; And a failure from councillors to even read emails. Anti-digital backlash includes a unanimous agreement that remote meetings are not an option even for working groups even in the context of rising Covid-19. The group suggested that the advantages of accessibility and transparency for the public needs to be highlighted more, as well as the fact that having online attendance as an option could maximise engagement.
However, a key point that emerged in the discussion is that experiences are varied particularly from amongst councils in more rural areas compared to those in more urban areas. One council noted the opposite problem, that councillors are frustrated at having to attend in person.
This one step forward, one step back approach appears common, with the move to digital slowly being adopted by other departments (i.e., ‘Ask your councillor’ projects, question times, live streaming of meetings), but without the lynchpin of online access to meetings, it feels as though small achievements are only happening on the periphery. Generally, the consensus was that councils going successfully digital are in the minority, even in smaller ways.
Additionally, the group discussed the challenge of uneven resources across councils. Some teams have no additional resources to go online with meetings and have faced difficulties upskilling staff who are taking on additional responsibilities. It was recognised that technology yields a lot of benefits, but they would like to see more support for non-technical democratic services officers when managing digital tools or have more resource for in house expertise. For example, there is a lot of requirements for understanding audio-visual videos and democratic services officers become the main point of contact for questions. The group suggested it would be useful to receive more support/training around this.
The group also highlighted that there is limited collaboration between IT departments and democratic services officers. Practice varies over collaboration between democratic services and IT, with responsibility and case management overwhelmingly falling on democratic services officers. The group said that they would like to see more support from IT teams and collaboration when introducing new technology.
There was also another challenge highlighted around the issue of uneven advancement in how councils can engage with the public. It was suggested that it would be helpful to have a solid definition of a hybrid meeting, for example, and other standardised terms as well as clear guidelines about how a hybrid meeting can work in a way that aligns with the law and policies around privacy and assurance. This prompted questions around, how can we go to the government and say this is what we think a compliant hybrid meeting model would look like? How do we create a framework with local partners to ensure hybrid working is done well? The group would like to see more examples of best practice around how other councils have successfully navigated this.