Presentation at Future of ePublic Services in the Atlantic Area 23 Jan 2014 CoLab, LYIT Campus, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal,

1. Engaging Citizens in Public
Service & Policy Design
@deirdrelee
Future of ePublic Services in the Atlantic Area
23/01/2014

2. A citizen is...
a)
a passive user of public services
b)
an active stakeholder in the design and
usage of public services

3. Citizens discuss issues…
Racism against
immigrants is
worsening in
the economic
crisis
There is no
official list of
local
intercultural
mediators
My community
is culturally
divided
…but feel disengaged from
actual policy-making

4. Policy-makers make policy…
Immigration
for studying
purposes
Immigration for
employment
purposes
Family
reunification
Irregular
immigration
Integration
and
citizenship
… but is it representative
and will it be effective?

5. Citizen engagement leads to
more participatory and
effective policy-making

6. Citizens have low levels of
trust in policy-makers

7. Policy-makers are
unprepared for high levels of
direct citizen engagement

8. Key Elements of Successful Engagement
Involvement since
beginning of process

9. Can Technologies Help?

10. Puzzled by Policy Approach
Offline Participation
Online Participation
•
•
•
•
•
Accessible
Open
Trace
Viral
Data analysis
• Accessible
– (Digital Divide)
• Builds trust
• Elaborate discussion

11. Online Participation
• eParticipation platforms
• Social media
• Open Data

12. Government-led vs. Citizen-led
Integrated model for participation
Porwol, L., Ojo, A. & Breslin, J., 2013. On The Duality of E-Participation – Towards a foundation for Citizen-Led Participation. In 2nd
Joint International Conference on Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective and International Conference on
Electronic Democracy. p. 15.

13. Puzzled by Policy Platform

14. Weaknesses of eParticipation Projects
Usage
Impact
Sustainability

15. Usage of Puzzled
• Pilots
–
–
–
–
Torino, Italy
Tenerife, Spain
Budapest, Hungary
Athens, Greece
• ~7,000 end-users
– Hard-to-reach users
• ~10 Decision-makers
• ~100 NGOs

16. Impact
• Improved integration and social cohesion in Tenerife
– Interfaith Prayer for peace, respect and integration
– School of Social Participation
• Kick-started process to introduce Register of
Intercultural Mediators in Turin
• Submission on female genital mutilation from the EU
immigration perspective as part to EC DG JUST
consultation

17. Testimonials
 ‘It is essential to convey the message that each and every person
living in the neighbourhood has a crucial role to play to enrich, build
and design a place for living together. We need to rely on citizen
involvement and participation to build more cohesive and sustainable
cities.’
Ms Eva Luz Cabrera from the Municipal Council for Citizen Participation in Tenerife
 ‘It is very important to have a platform like PbP in place which gives a
voice to citizens in general but more importantly to immigrants.’
Maria Kouveli, President, Local Council for Immigrants Integration, Greece
 ‘The division between institutions and politics on one hand and
citizens on another is deepening. Opportunities like PbP for us as
members of the European Parliament to communicate through social
media and other electronic tools are very useful.’
Tanja Fajon, Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, European
Parliament

18. eParticipation Tools
•
•
•
•
Loomio (collaborative decision-making)
CiviQ (making opinions count)
OurSpace
Immigration Policy 2.0

19. Government use of Social Media
• Dissemination of news,
• reporting on events,
• promotion of projects,
• some citizen engagement

20. Data Analysis Pipeline
Extract
relevant data
Linked Data
Analysis
Trends, opinions,
ideas

21. eParticipation data model
Puzzled by Policy
Forum
Foaf:Person
corresponds to
SIOC:Forum
SIOC:has_creator
SIOC:parent_of
Topic
corresponds to
SIOC:has_parent
SIOC:parent_of
Thread
corresponds to
SIOC:has_parent
SIOC:Thread
SIOC:parent_of
Post
corresponds to
SIOC:UserAccount
Schema:Topic
SIOC:has_parent
SIOC:Post
SIOC:has topic
SIOC:has_reply
SIOC:Topic
corresponds to
Social Media
( Facebook, Twitter)
Post

22. Puzzled by Policy & social media content

23. Social-media Analysis
•
•
•
•
Hootsuite
SproutSocial
ViralHeat
Linked2Media

24. Puzzled by Policy Sustainability Toolkit
www.puzzledbypolicy.eu

25. www.codeforireland.com

26. To enable public-sector organisations to harness the power of data:
improving insight, efficiency, and compliance.
www.derilinx.com

27. Key Elements of Successful Engagement
Involvement since
beginning of process