Contents this month
Project news
NDA Convenor
Dialogue by Design is working in partnership with 3KQ as the
new Convenor for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s
(NDA) Stakeholder Engagement Process.
The NDA was set up in April 2005 with the mission of cleaning
up the UK’s civil nuclear legacy. Engaging openly and transparently
with stakeholders is critical to the success of achieving this.
This is an exciting project for us as it has a great deal of
significance for local and national stakeholders across the UK.
Our aim is to ensure that the process meets as many peoples’
needs as possible.
There is already an existing programme of Stakeholder Engagement
in place and one of our initial tasks is to undertake a review
of how the NDA engages. This has been requested by stakeholders
with specific calls for:
- an introduction of more varied methods of consultation
- better use of the opportunities that electronic technologies
provide
- involving a larger number and wider range of people
- ensuring clarity of aims and outputs for each workstream
- the NDA to better demonstrate how input from stakeholders
has influenced its decision-making.
The results of this review will be presented at the next National
Stakeholder Group meeting on 5 & 6 July.
Preparations for this year's Metropolitan Police Consultation
on Policing Priorities
Despite various changes in detail, for four years we have applied
the same fundamental sequence in our annual consultations for
the Metropolitan Police: first, we let the public have their say
about policing priorities; secondly, provide senior staff with
the results of the public consultation and ask them to comment
on how these issues are being addressed. This structure had a
number of benefits. For the Met, they provide an opportunity to
hear what citizens think without prompts and to understand why
issues are important in some detail. For the public, the consultations
allow them to express concerns, but also to learn about what others
think and how the Met deals with crucial issues of policing.
This year, while the plans are still evolving, a new dimension
will be added to the consultation: a major strand of the consultation
will be discussions held by Safer Neighbourhood Panels to debate
policing priorities and actions the Met are taking and how they
communicate to communities. We are preparing 'discussion packs'
- a tool which has proved useful to stimulate and structure group
discussions on topics such as 'Managing radioactive waste in the
UK' or 'Waste management priorities in Kent'. While using these
discussion packs for our annual Met consultation is a new component,
we will build on the results of the previous years’ consultations,
by extracting those issues that have been of most concern over
the past four years as a starting point for the discussions.
Engaging with members on a global scale - A Roadmap for 21st
Century Chemical Engineering
Imagine a membership organisation of professionals with members
distributed all over the world. Imagine these professionals' work
is at the core of a wide range of industry sectors. And then,
imagine this organisation aims to develop position statements
in order to contribute to the public debate on today's world's
global problems, position statements which broadly represent the
membership.
Using Dialogue by Design's document review template, the Institution
of Chemical Engineers embarked on such a process from September
2006 to February 2007, covering areas such as sustainable chemical
technology, health, safety & environment, energy, food &
drink, water, and biosystems engineering. Members from 54 countries
registered to take part in the consultation, and more than 550
participants submitted their views during the two rounds of consultation.
The first round presented draft position statements and asked
for comments. The second round presented the results back, together
with the revised position statements and action plans that build
on them. The 'Technical Roadmap', which is made up of these position
statements and action plans, will be formally launched at the
Jubilee Assembly in London in May 2007.
This project demonstrates a number of strengths of our online
consultation system. Firstly, it allows us to involve participants
from all over the world, saving on time and travel costs (and
carbon emissions!). Secondly, it allows us to structure a complex
subject by dividing it into chapters and sections, allowing participants
to select those areas in which they are most interested and/or
specialised. Thirdly, while collating a flood of more than 10,000
comments is still a big task to do, our structured analysis tools
put us in a position to come to grips with such a quantity as
quickly as possible.
The participants, all engineers, seemed to enjoy the online consultation
process; here is some of the feedback they gave us:
‘A very valuable process, easy to follow and contribute.’
‘Despite the complexity of the subject matter, an
excellent approach to obtaining input in a short period of time.
Great idea!’
‘It was great to see the comments from other respondents.
It really helped to see that the vision is held broadly and
not just with a limited few in a committee. I think this method
of consultation has been the most open and interactive that
I have seen.’