Engaging citizen early input in policy and legislation development, service design and delivery

1. Slide 1
Smart Government New Zealand 2011
Beyond dialogue to co-creation
Collaboration for service delivery, legislation and policy development
Leverage the participation of stakeholders in the interest of co-creating social resources?
Lessons learned – successes and failures.

2. Slide 2
Participation 1.0 Participation 2.0
Information
Consultation
Participation
Source: adapted from OECD (2001)
Guide to Online Participation, http://participation.e.govt.nz
Colleague, Dr Joanne Caddy from OECD, developed this model to describe the three
elements of public engagement in a Web 1.0 and a Web 2.0 environment:
Describe participation 1.0
Information: email alerts, websites
Consultation: online forms, consultation
Participation: discussion forums, shared workspaces
Participation 2.0
Information : RSS feeds, tag clouds, webcasts
Consultation: blogs, online polls, online surveys
Participation: e-petitions, mashups, wikis, virtual worlds

3. Slide 3
> Feedback/consultation
Engage at the beginning
Get involved
Don Lenihan, Vice president Engagement, Public Policy Forum Canada
Lynelle Briggs CEO of Medicine Australia
From Co-Design Toward a New Service Vision for Australia
•Co creation (co-design/co-production) is more than asking for feedback or undertaking
consultation and satisfaction surveys
•Engage individuals or groups from the beginning to the end of the process
•Get involved in the design
This is not a new concept. UK Design Council I visited in 2006; also pushed that concept
here at NZ State services. Applied in practice with an all-of-govt programme – multi-
discipline approach.
Gradual changes
It’s quite possible to spend a very little amount of money and still get very big returns and I
think that we should at this time be focusing on those sorts of characteristics. James
Gardner, CTO at Dept for Work and Pensions UK in Feature: Driving Innovation Civil Service
Live network.”
Small, incremental innovation – numbers add up to big transformational change.
Political will – more with less.

4. Slide 4
The Co-Design article referred to the new information technologies in its critical role to
reshape the thinking and practice around delivering government services.
Consider the communication tools that we have used over time
Stagecoach – between villages and towns to deliver supplies and letters
Telephone – conversation between two people
Satellite - global communications
Social networking tools – no longer reliant on Web masters; can now create our own content
and share.
Christchurch earthquake – used mobile phone to take footage that news then relied on;
went onto Facebook to get update news to correspond with other news coverage

5. Slide 5
SafeAs road safety
Police Act engagement
Some early examples
SafeAs - road safety campaign -
Forum
Participants response
Deliverables
Policy Act engagement
Innovative approaches to get public views on a new Act
Community told us – we want practical examples.
Examples are usually below the radar. Search in your own communities. Speak to the
frontline.

6. Slide 6
 Transparency
 Right questions
 Trust
 Interaction
 Principles
Conditions that are still valid today
Reference David Hume’s early work on feedback.
Building trust
Be transparent about how information from engagement will be used
Moving from engagement to decision making – everyone as much as possible should be
working from the same basis of information.
Frame the issue so people can come to grips with the core elements quickly.
Create the right questions – very difficult but critical process. Questions need to be tested in
the context where they are going to be asked.
Trust takes time to build – with bad experiences, people likely to be cynical. Once able to air
concerns and they begin to see behaviour that reassures, they become constructive.
SafeAs allowed comments to go up without being viewed by a moderator first. Suggested
the posts would not be censored by public servants.
Interaction between people matters most, not interaction between people and their
machines. This means technology is secondary to the principles of engagement.
Core principles that last:
Clarity – be clear
Respect: show respect for contributions, perspectives, values and prerogatives
Confidence and commitment: building confidence as a basis for commitment.
Creativity: new tools mean new approaches.
Inclusion – go to where people are
Accountability – everyone is accountable
Achievement – make a difference: strive for, building on and celebrate achievements

7. Slide 7
Vision
Energy
Perspectives
Communications
Mandate
Results
Vision – what do you want to achieve? Steps to get there.
NZ known as a pioneer; we’ve now been overtaken by other countries.
Energy is needed – to work through barriers, maintain momentum, adapt.
Police Act Wiki (for example): an open environment seeking public ideas on what could be
contained in a new Police Act; monitoring input from once or twice during the day, to 4 staff
monitoring due to high demand.
Need to build momentum and maintain. If one champion steps out, need new to step in.
Involve different perspectives – multi-disciplinary approach to engagement, co-design
What are the touchpoints that affect people’s experience of State services? E.g Drivers of
crime.
Communications – how we communicate is critical; address expectations (eg “drafting
naked”)
A mandate to prototype new approaches to improving services, legislation and policies is
necessary. Seek a guardian angel to give permission and recognise the insights and
expertise. Managing for Joint Outcomes – connecting up the horizontal and the vertical
Ryan, Gill, Eppel, Lips, Victoria University of Wellington
Results – we need to demonstrate progress. Simple yet as Joanne explained to me – the
OECD way – need to demonstrate results along the way even though a significant change is
required.
Small, incremental innovation – numbers add up to big transformational change.

8. Political will – more with less.
NOTE: Co-creation is not always appropriate. Fundamental is transparency and trust in the
process. If people know how a decision was arrived at, it is a better situation than going into
a black hole and there being no resemblance between an early consultation and the
outcome.
Slide 8
 your experiences?
 do differently?
 your ideal?
What are your experiences with government engaging people in service and policy design?
What would you do differently?
What is your ambition, your ideal situation for this subject matter?
How would you evaluate your results?

9. Slide 9
Laura Sommer
e. Laura.sommer@xtra.co.nz
LJ Systemic Options Ltd