From $1

Session facilitated by @dbhume (approx 17 participants, including Senator Elaine McCoy)

Introduction

This session focused on how to connect public participation with council. Our intent was to talk about public involvement in council decision making, and try and be helpful to the City by proposing some ideas about how involvement could work. The tangible outcome of this talking and thinking will be a proposed policy that can be used by council to shape how they design public involvement processes in the future.

A lot of our discussion focussed on consultation. There was some acknowledgement that this is not the only form of public involvement possible--even phoning 311 to highlight a pothole is important--but consultation became a focus mainly because of it is one of the deeper ways individuals can impact the decision making process.

Some tensions emerged in the discussion. In particular, there were some who felt that council is unlikely to listen unless some demands were placed on them. Standards for consultation that council must abide by are one expression of this point of view. On the other side of the debate were those who advocated that council is most likely to listen to those who seek to 'help' rather than box them in. This group suggested providing council with information about good practice case studies and scenarios that describe how to do public involvement differently was the right strategy to get council's attention and create change.

The following tries to harmonize these two approaches into a draft policy statement we can begin to share with the Council. It has several sections. The first are the notes of our short session at ChangeCamp captured as 'Discussion'. It then goes on to the various sections of the policy statement--Vision, The Case for Public Engagement, Scenarios for Change, and Standards of Engagement. We'll also add a section called 'Next Steps' as a space to brainstorm how to take these ideas forward to Council.

Discussion

• Advisory Committees (16 Committees)
• White paper or discussion peice?
  
• Standard of consultation required
• Councillors need this / but we need to put pressure on them
  
• Better information
• advocate for a policy for greater public involvement (general policy that defines participation not necessarily on SM)
• Tangible product: Policy Statement/Recommendation, w/critical path = introduce to existing advisory committies
  
• Use existing bureaucratic channels because it is tangible
• inform and educate on how to get ideas to council
• how van council inform citizens
• follow through on standards, e.g. action items
• no more pro forma consultations
• what sort of issues do you consult on
• model in the planning act
• we don't know how to measure success, we need to create a measure
• what is the recourse if no one bites on the opportunity to consult
• provide council w/array of scenarios for consultation
• present it as a tool kit/score care
• language needs to shift from consultation to participation
• introduce social tagging into government data; create meta data that is relevant/searchable
  

Summary

1. Vision Statement
2. The Case
3. Scenarios
4. Standards

Vision Statement

Our vision is of an Ottawa where people's relationship with their Council and their community is positive, mature, creative and productive. An Ottawa where technology and face to face processes connect us to opportunities to participate in our city that encourage empathy, learning, constructive criticism, and an ethos of continuous improvement and shared achievement.

The Case--The Trouble with Consultation

The trouble with consultation is known to most people who get involved with one.From the perspective of participants, the process can be too short, 'unrepresentative' or already headed down a track towards a predetermined outcome. From the perspective of council officials, too much process can be cumbersome, combative and a complication that is, frankly, incredibly inefficient. For councillors, such consultations tend to add very little value to the decision making process. They tend to reflect narrow, entrenched interests, and responses from the small number of citizens that do get involved often reflect the views of the 'usual suspects', or fall into pro-forma not-in-my-backyard negativity.

So, we have a desire from citizens to be heard, a desire from coucil officials to run smoother, more efficient and effective processes, and a desire from councillors to get citizen input that adds value to decision-making. But what we have now is not meeting any of those aspirations.

Well designed public involvement processes should satisfy most or all these desires. They are explictly designed to build trust, genuinely test ideas, and guard against special interests (including council, citizens or stakeholder groups) having too much influence. In short, they are robust policy development processes that leverage the knowledge of communities, experts, stakeholders, council officials and councillors themselves to create better outcomes on specific issues. There are bottom line implications as well. Done well, such processes will help the council better match needs with resources, ultimately saving money through cost avoidance founded on better design of policies and programs, and less risk of litigation or community resistance.

Scenarios

Standards (NB: this part of the discussion was framed from citizen viewpoint, "I need ...")

• my contributions need to be reflected in outcomes (e.g. reports)
• lead time for meaningful consultation
• full disclosure of available information
• all parties need to be there (or at least be invited)
• my interests need to be recognized
• to know that they are participating in a decision making process, not rendering opinions on a decision that has already been made
• to be kept informed after the consultation
• move from consultation to participation
• understand how others how others understand or interpret my views (social tagging)
• support from the city (receptivity to my desire to be involved)
  
• to vote more (more points of contact for influence)

Contact Info for Volunteers (Please add your contact information if you can help move thisd forward)

1. David Hume (email dbhume@yahoo.com / twitter: @dbhume)
   
2. Tracey Lauriault (email: tlauriau@gmail.com)