4. About
• Registered Charity (nr. 1130568)
• Focus: Public and stakeholder engagement
• Works with: Central & local government.
Health organisations, NGOs and International
Organisations
• www.involve.org.uk
5.
6. Sciencewise-Expert Resource Centre
Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre for Public
Dialogue in Science and Technology (ERC)
To help improve
policy-making in Funded by the Department for Business
science and Innovation and Skills (BIS)
technology through
the use of public It aims to help policy makers commission and
dialogue and use public dialogue to inform policy decisions
engagement in emerging areas of science and technology
Launched in 2008
www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk 6
7. What public dialogue costs – in context
The scale of
Nanodialogues project (2006) cost
investment in £240,000 and explored
dialogue projects
is dwarfed by the nanotechnology &upstream
scale of the policy engagement over 26 months. Value of
fields that
dialogue has nano research in 2007 was estimated
influenced to be about $12 billion; and the value
of nano-enabled products was
estimated then to be around $50
billion
www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk 7
8. What not doing public dialogue can cost
Overall, the costs of not doing public
dialogue can far outweigh the costs of the
dialogue. For example:
• public opposition can delay or entirely
prevent continuing policy development,
innovation and new technologies
• conflict and entrenched positions
can result in the complete rejection of new
technologies.
"If you think dialogue is expensive, try
conflict”
www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk 8
9. Getting
Started
Picture CC: Some rights reserved By: mconnors
10. What we’ll cover
• Introduction
• Questions and answers
• Introducing the tool
• Exercise
• Plenary Disucssion
11. Examples of Engagement
• Science Policy Dialogue
• Science Festival
• Community Outreach
• Community Jury
• Co-creation of Research
12. Business Case
‘At the end of the day the most important
question you need to tackle isn’t the ‘what’
but the ‘why’. You need to be able to
articulate a compelling rationale for
engagement that convinces your colleagues.’
Paul Younger -University of Newcastle
13. Research vs. Business case
Research Business case
• Academic • Practical
• Complete • Incomplete
• Time consuming • As much time as
• Truth you have
• Good enough
18. Exercise
• In groups identify how you might value the
costs and benefits of a particular engagement
project using the tool.
• Ideally a ‘live’ project; however, it could also
be a ‘dummy’ project.
19. Exercise
1. Define the focus and purpose
2. Decide what to measure
3. Complete the checklist and chart
4. Analyse the results and ‘test’ with other
groups
20. Stage 1 - Scope the business case
• Decide how you will use the toolkit
• Decide who your audiences are
• Decide if monetary valuation is appropriate
for you
21. Costs that Benefits that
can be given can be given
a monetary a monetary
value value
Costs that Benefits that
cannot be cannot be
expressed in expressed in
monetary monetary
terms terms
22. Stage 2 –Define focus and purpose
• Decide the focus for the business case
• Clarify the intended purpose and outcomes
• Consider possible comparator areas/ projects
23. Comparators
• Do nothing
• Status Quo
• Alternative engagement methods
• Alternative means of achieving the benefits
24. Distributional impacts
• DEFRA and the Environment Agency (2005)
estimated that around 5% of all permit
applications took in excess of 500 hrs to
process and 1% took over 1,000 hrs.
• Total Place Report (2010) found 200 to 300
‘chaotic’ families in Croydon; each cost public
services around £250,000 per year
25. Stage 3 -Decide what to measure
• Identify what can be given a money value and
what can't
• Identify who you need help from to obtain the
data
• Identify where proxies might be appropriate
26. Benefits
• Innovation and creativity
• Avoiding conflict
• Access to new resources
• Development/maintenance
• Better quality outcomes
• Information and expertise
• Increased public awareness
• Sharing responsibility
• Increased use
• Staff morale
27. Non-monetary benefits
• Revealed preference (What people do)
• Stated preference (What people say)
– Willingness to pay
– Willingness to accept
• Benefits transfer (What other people measured)
• Replacement Costs (What people would do instead)
28. Benefits Transfer (Portsmouth)
• Bin fires in area: 2006: 154 2008: 135
• Each case of criminal damage ~ £856
• 4.29 crimes unreported per reported case.
• Potential saving of £69,772.56 per year
• Also non monetary benefits: increased
volunteering, levels of satisfaction
29. Replacement costs
New resource Replacement cost
Increased volunteer time The cost of providing the
service or activity using paid
staff
New intelligence and The cost of gathering the same
information information using a market
research company
New and improved The cost of building the same
relationships links through a PR and
communications exercise
Increased public awareness of The cost of achieving a similar
policies and services level of awareness through
campaigns or PR
30. Stage 4 Complete checklist & chart
• Understand your data and assumptions
• Gather the data you need
• Fill in the checklist and calculation chart
• Use spreadsheets to track costs and benefits
31. Benefits - Increase trust
Monetary value Measured by Non-monetary value
Reduced spend on Staff work Reported trust
complaints diaries/time sheets, levels, people
complaints listings reporting feeling
able to influence
decisions
32. Benefits - Take difficult decisions
Monetary value Measured by Non-monetary value
Reduced conflict Legal costs, staff Number of negative
and reduced spend work diaries/time articles in press,
on legal challenges sheets, complaints survey results
listings
33. Stage 5 -Analyse results
• Try out different methods of analysis, for
example SROI, Cost benefit, Cost-effectiveness
• Understand the limitations of the data
• Test results with colleagues
34. Example -Probability
Environment Agency aimed to build
ownership/trust in flood defence schemes:
• Flood mitigation benefit= £35-40 million
• Engagement= £2 million
• To be cost effective in future probability of
success must increase by 5.7% (£2 m/£35m).
• Engagement needs to change the result from
rejection to acceptance in 1 case in 20 to be
worthwhile.
35. Stage 6 -Present the business case
• Select appropriate presentation format
• Present the business case
• Adapt to feedback
36. Communicating the result
• Use the business case to tell stories
• Tailor your argument to fit your audience
• Seeing is believing
• Anecdotes can be powerful
• Don’t forget the potential costs of non-
engagement
• Theory of Change
37. Doncaster furniture recycling
Benefits to council Benefits to clients
• 488 tonnes of waste • 4000+ low-income
diverted from landfill, households received
saving approximately goods –estimated
£20,000 in landfill tax supplying same families
payments. with second-hand
goods would have cost
£140,000 with existing
market prices.
38. Exercise
• In groups identify how you might value the
costs and benefits of a particular engagement
project using the tool.
• Ideally a ‘live’ project; however, it could also
be a ‘dummy’ project.
39. Exercise
1. Define the focus and purpose
2. Decide what to measure
3. Complete the checklist and chart
4. Analyse the results and ‘test’ with other
groups
44. “It is better to be roughly right
than precisely wrong”
John Maynard Keynes
45. The tail end
involve
Picture CC: Some rights reserved By: mconnors
Royal London House
22-25 Finsbury Square
London
EC2A 1DX
t: 0 20 7920 6470
e: edward@involve.org.uk
twitter: ed_andersson
