Alessandro Bellantoni Amanda Clarke Barbara Ubaldi Claudia Chwalisz Miriam Levin Mor Rubinstein
20 Mar 2019, 3 p.m. Room D (Chateau)
This session will explore two aspects of inclusive governance: inclusive policy making and inclusive service design and delivery. How to involve everyday people from all walks of life in policy making, in such a way that allows them to give constructive, informed input into public decisions? And how to enhance the reach and impact of digital public services to support inclusion in terms of design and delivery?
Citizen participation in policy development – from local to national levels – is nothing new. Technology has brought many opportunities to change the way that governments and citizens can interact, collaborate and co-create policies and services. But it has also brought challenges: inclusiveness, diversity and representativeness, and a struggle to capture public judgement, not just public opinion.
We will explore some of the ways that governments are trying to tackle this, combining tech with more deliberative forms of engagement. Some examples we may discuss are the UK’s Innovation in Democracy programme, which is empowering eight local authorities to organise citizens’ assemblies, and Madrid’s combination of online platform Decide Madrid with a new Citizens’ Council that will deliberate about which citizens’ proposals should go forward to a popular vote. The session will also explore how countries are moving towards the design and delivery of user-driven and inclusive digital public services that respond to citizens’ needs. Ensuring digital by design and multi-channel approaches in terms of citizens’ engagement and public service delivery would be addressed as a core element of digital government efforts in this regard.