Presentation for the local by social online conference November 2010

1. Scrutiny, Social Media and Us
Dave Mckenna
Overview & Scrutiny ManagerPresentation for the
Local By Social OnlineConference
November 2010

2. Caution
Social Media Amateurs at Work
!

3. Purpose of this presentation is to share:
• A little about local government scrutiny
• Why we wanted to use social media
• What we have done
• What has been good, what could have been
better and some wishes

4. First, what is local government scrutiny?
A bit like parliamentary select
committees but for local
government

5. The aim of scrutiny in Swansea is…
To provide ‘critical friend’ challenge to the
executive (and decision makers) by undertaking
a range of overview and scrutiny activities to
ensure that improvement is delivered, sustained
and embedded

6. In a nutshell , the outcomes of effective scrutiny are:
Better Decisions
Better Policies
Better Services
(this is why we do it)

7. Put simply…in bad Haiku..
Ask the right questions
Investigate and propose
Ways we can improve
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_D.C._Cherry_Blossoms.jpg
Scrutiny…

8. In Swansea we have 5 boards + 2 committees
Child and
Family
Services
Children,
Young
People &
Learning
Environment &
Communities
Health, Social
Care &
Wellbeing
Performance
and Finance
Partnership Business
Overview & Scrutiny Boards
Overview & Scrutiny Committees

9. …that need effective support
Project Management –
work planning and
organising for the boards
& committees
Research – doing
research, providing the
analysis, presenting the
results
Communications - drafting
reports and giving
presentations
Relationship
Management – working
with councillors,
departments, partners
and the public
Diplomacy – working in a
politically sensitive environment
Overview & Scrutiny
Unit (us)

10. Why social media?

11. No one really downloaded our newsletter…

12. Surveys told us there was low awareness
of what we do
Staff (157 responses)
Do you agree that you have a good understanding
of the work of overview and scrutiny?
2010 2009
Strongly agree 10.4%(16) 6.6%(9)
Tend to agree 42.2%(65) 39.7%(54)
Tend to disagree 32.5%(50) 40.4%(55)
Strongly disagree 14.3%(22) 12.5%(17)

13. We thought it would help us get evidence for our
reviews…

14. …and we thought it would widen involvement in the
work of the boards and committees

15. We wanted to overcome council formality…

16. …and engage people in issues that really matter
Recycling
Corporate Parenting
Shared Services
Literacy in Schools
Community Alarms
Adult social care
Cycling
Youth Services
Public Transport
Regeneration Projects

17. What We Have Done

18. We spent time planning and came up with some
principles
• Be clear why we are using which tools
• Live the values of each tool
• Focus on news relevant to people
• Use the ‘language of questions’
• Use ‘swansea scrutiny’ as a consistent brand
• Extend our use of different media
• Communicate as people - be friendly, readable
and fun

19. We even made ourselves a logo!

20. This is the plan we made…
Minutes & Agendas
via council site
Scrutiny web pages
on council site
Staff intranet
Wordpress Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Slideshare
Flikr
Youtube
Staff
Councillors
National /
Expert Bodies
“General” Public
Back End Interactive People
Corporate We support
Conversation
Multimedia

21. We use our blog to talk about our reviews and some
of our meetings

22. We can now share presentations from meetings

23. We have even started making films!

24. We use Twitter mainly to signpost and to find out what’s
happening nationally

25. We use Facebook to (try to) reach the public

26. We realised we had to redesign our webpages

27. Each board now has their own ‘homepage’

28. Three things good

29. 1. We are fairly happy with the numbers
• In the first 6 months 613 unique visitors to the blog -
10% visited 3 times or more
• 192 twitter followers
• 22 people ‘like’ us on facebook

30. 2. It’s opened many new lines of communication

31. 3. We have benefited from great help and support
• Duncan our Web Manager
• Lee our Head of Service
• Twitter & CoP friends:
– @ingridk
– @davebriggs
– @carlhaggerty
– Many others!

32. Two things that could have been better

33. 1. facebook – not sure it’s right for us

34. 2. It’s been communication but not yet conversation

35. Three wishes

36. 1. Better links from our internet / intranet would
increase our traffic

37. 2. New staff social media policies would help our
internal engagement

38. 3. More councillors engaging online would be better
all round!

39. Thank you for (virtually) listening