What we learnt at our launch workshop
Overview
We kicked-off Public Square with a day-long event on 19th November 2018, bringing together a range of people who wanted to improve local democracy. Attendees included people from community and voluntary organisations, active citizens, academics, and people working in local government. We wanted to learn more about the current state of play and what a programme like Public Square can add.
Here you can read what we discussed with participants and access the full data below.
What we asked
After the project team introduced Public Square, and outlined our vision for the programme, we facilitated a series of exercises to learn more from those present.
Conversation one: Our collective aspiration
We started the facilitated conversations by asking people to tell us about their own personal visions for better participation in local government, asking: “What it is that made you care enough to spend your Monday at an event like this. What is the dream you want to achieve?”
Over the course of 15 minutes and and using large Post-it notes, participants shared their visions – sticking them up on a ‘vision wall’.
Conversation two: Our realities
To help us think about a better reality, we asked people to consider what local democracy is like now. In pairs, we asked people to each spend 10 minutes telling their partner about their experience of local democracy, be it good and bad. There weren’t any outputs from this part of the conversation.
Conversation three: What is working?
Working in groups of about five, we asked people to think about what is working. What are the initiatives that are making a positive difference to local democracy. Within this we asked people to also think about who is doing interesting, promising stuff on this topic. Groups had thirty minutes to talk about this, with flip charts and post-its notes used to capture key points. After the discussion there was 15 minutes to share things back between groups.
Conversation four: What is getting in the way?
Next we asked the same small groups to think about what’s getting in the way of a better local democracy. There was just under an hour to think about this, including exploring whether there were any commonalities amongst the different issues faced. Groups again had a chance to share back what they’d each talked about.
Conversation five: Exploring opportunities
Lastly we asked people to share their suggestions for how we can make local democracy better. Participants were encouraged to throw out ideas regardless of how left-field they are. After groups had recorded suggestions on flip charts there was a chance to use dot voting as a simple way of showing which ideas people liked the most.
What we learnt: the data in full
What we heard will inform how Public Square develops. In the meantime, you can read the full data we collected in this google sheet.
What’s next?
The event was hugely valuable in helping us to change some of our thinking about Public Square and we’ll be sharing more about the event very soon. When we can, we’ll be publishing:
- Reflections about what our own thoughts were about what people said – and telling you how they have affected our thinking on the programme.
- We’ll also tell you about actions that relate directly from the event – that include how we’ve made direct changes to what we’re doing because of what we heard.
Tell us what you think
If you attended the event we’d love to hear your own thoughts and reflections on the day. You can comment below or contact us directly!