A brief presentation that talks a little about the implications of our 2012 survey of internet use by Community Councils in Scotland - and exploring options for further research approaches

1. Peter Cruickshank
Bruce Ryan
Colin F Smith
‘Hyperlocal e-participation’?
Evaluating online activity
by Scottish Community Councils

2. What are community councils
• Their purpose is to represent small areas within Local Authorities
• Powers are limited
– Mostly, the right to be consulted
– Some more direct input into planning processes
• Community Council members are unpaid volunteers
• Small to non-existent budgets
– Average annual income is around £400
– enough to hire a monthly meeting room, pay for some stationery
(Arrangements of hyperlocal government vary across the United Kingdom between
England, Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland but share a common model)
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3. Three similar countries
Austria Norway Scotland*
Pop. (m) 8.3 5.0 5.3
Federal 9 Bundesländer - (Part of UK)
County
84 Bezirke
15 Statutarstädte
19
fylker
32 Local
Authorities
Community 2346 Gemeinden 434 kommuner
1369 Community
Councils
‘000 people per
community
3.5 11.5 3.9
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*Depending who you ask
Three smallish countries with a mix of urban and remote rural populations

4. Community Council locations
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5. Three similar countries
Austria Norway Scotland
Websites 98% (2008) 90% (2003)
Hosting .gv.at
Social media 58% (2011)
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Community councils online

6. Three similar countries
Austria Norway Scotland
Websites 98% (2008) 90% (2003) ?
Hosting .gv.at ?
Social media 58% (2011) ?
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Community councils online

7. What does the literature say
• E-participation
– Can hold government to account
– Helps communication (Grosse 2013)
– But isn’t everything: Reinforces power relations
– Seen in context of channel choice (Saglie & Vabo, 2009)
– Don’t expect 100% (active) participation
• Delivery of information: perhaps models of media would be where to
look?
– Recognises role of passive participation (‘lurking’)
• Voluntary organisation?
– Should we look to charities? (Goatman & Lewis 2007)
– And how they target interest groups (Winterich et al 2012)
• Impact of smallscale Geography
– Cities are different from countryside
– Part of identification with small towns (Bruns 2010)
– Community groups as a way to get to now your neighbours (Nyseth & Ringholm, 2008)
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8. How are CCs (visibly) acting?
Represent-
ative body
Com-
munity
group
Campaign-
ing group
Local
media
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9. Gathering the data
Limitations
Offline only
Closed groups
Social media
not the web
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Activity levels
Level of e-
participation
Content types
• Contacts
• News
• Planning
• Local info
Hosting
arrangements
• Where are the servers
• What platform is used

10. Results
Inactive
CCs
Active with online presences…
Total
CCs…missing
…out-of-
date
…up-
to-date
Total 213 498 351 307 1,369
% of all 16% 36% 26% 22% 100%
%of active NA 43% 30% 27% 100%
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11. Results
What does seem to work?
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0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
Active and…

12. Results
• This level of use of websites compares adversely with the 98% of
Austrian Gemeinden and 90% of Norwegian kommuner.
• Only 38 CCs (12% of active online sites) had information to support
engagement with the planning process
• despite this being core to their mission.
• Low level of use of Facebook
• LA-hosted presences tended to have only minutes and CC contact
details
• What are the drivers for use if internet?
– Data seem to imply support from LA was most significant
– No simple relationship between urban/rural characteristic of LAs and CCs’
online effectiveness
– Probably need to drill down into more detailed social statistics
– Profile of the community councillors (eg age) is probably also significant
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13. Put simply:
Community Councils aren’t flying
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• Essentially, Looking at a
failed part of the political
system
…an edge case
» Technology will
not solve this
problem
• BUT: It is interesting to look
for cases where technology
does make a difference
• Can models of practice be
shared?
www.identitybydesign.co.nz

14. What next
Data gathering…
• Resurvey
• Twitter analysis
• Ethnography
Interventions
• KM
• ?
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15. THANK YOU
Peter Cruickshank
p.cruickshank@napier.ac.uk
@spartakan
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