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Case Study: Communities tackling tough challenges

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Name of project: Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change and Biodiversity 2023

Led By: Sustainability Team, Barnet Council

Summary: The council ran a Citizen’s Assembly on climate change and biodiversity to better understand the community’s views on how Barnet should achieve its sustainability targets.

The situation: After declaring a climate emergency in 2022, Barnet Council committed to becoming a Net Zero council by 2030, and a Net Zero borough by no later than 2042. However it was clear that increasing sustainability across Barnet would require a whole-council and whole-place approach. As a complex issue that stretches across lots of areas of public life, achieving Net Zero targets would only be possible through collaboration between individuals, households, businesses, institutions and government.

The approach: Tackling the issue via a Citizens’ Assembly was a manifesto commitment from the incoming administration, rooted in a desire to ensure that this complex agenda would be driven by the priorities of Barnet residents. By bringing together a randomly selected group of people who broadly represent the entire community, the Citizens’ Assembly was designed to provide a platform for a diverse group of people to voice their opinions, learn and discuss issues together. The ultimate goal was to understand how to deliver sustainability collectively as a borough, with all of the community playing a role together. This was Barnet’s first experience of a deliberative assembly focused on a single theme.

Facilitated by an external agency, Assembly members worked together to write a vision for a more sustainable Barnet. It was written to reflect their broad view on the changes required to act on the climate emergency, and what the borough needs to consider to enable a fair and equitable future. The outputs of the process were a series of recommendations to inform council policy, and considering how to put community participation at the heart of the council’s approach to this area of work in future activity.

The details:

Process: The Citizens’ Assemblies brought together 60 randomly selected residents aged 12-90 from across the borough between February and May 2023 to develop recommendations in response to the question: “Barnet has declared a climate emergency. What more can we do together to make Barnet more sustainable, now and in the future?”

40 residents aged 18+ took part over 30 hours of sessions, and 20 residents aged 12-17 took part over 24 hours of sessions as part of a young people’s assembly. The two groups came together at key points to share their experiences, ideas and report presents the work that they did together. Participants had opportunities to hear from experts on the key issues, engage directly with senior decision-makers, explore the values that should inform decision-making, and discuss potential visions for the future.

Themes explored by both Assemblies were based on the council’s draft sustainability action plan. These ware areas identified as having both the scope to significantly reduce the borough’s carbon emissions and protect its biodiversity and require borough-wide action. Recommendations were developed following opportunities to share experiences and learn about climate change and sustainability in Barnet and beyond, supported by presentations and interactive activities. The eventual recommendations included a clear set of citizen-led priorities, and an outline of how different stakeholders (including individuals and the community as a whole) should work together to achieve the shared vision.

Working with partners: The project included significant work with partners, which was particularly helpful given the new and ambitious nature of the activities. Initial participant recruitment was carried out by a not-for-profit organisation that specialises in recruiting and selecting people by lottery to take part in these kinds of events, in a way that is broadly representative of the wider population. This was really useful for making sure that there was a genuinely diverse group of participants involved, in a way which was particularly relevant for the topic concerned (e.g. ensuring a mixture of professional statuses given the differing transport requirements of different occupations). The Sustainability team also worked with another external partner to structure the overall process and engage with participants. It was important to work closely with partners to set clear parameters about exactly what responsibilities sat where – both at the outset of the project, and on an ongoing basis. Throughout, the Sustainability team needed to be clear and transparent about the unique role of the council, both in setting the parameters of the project, and on bringing local knowledge and connections.

Setting up for successful deliberation: At the heart of this approach was a commitment to opening up difficult decision-making to residents. That often meant sharing complex information, for example about climate science, council responsibilities etc. The team found that it was helpful to provide information in multiple different formats to suit different participants e.g. video, slides, notes etc. Initially the team were over-reliant on slides and recognised that not all participants were able to digest the information when presented like this. It also worked well to arrive prepared with concrete examples that residents could relate to when discussing potential policy changes i.e. to help residents visualise how a specific service that they were already familiar with might be affected. In general, the project was informed by the principle that giving citizens the information they needed to tackle these complex issues might take time, but was always achievable and hugely valuable.

Challenges:

  1. Timescales: Deliberation activities typically require more time than usual consultation meetings. In the case of the Citizen’s Assembly this was 30 hours of citizen deliberation time, requiring 6 months of full-time planning from within the council. The team often found that they were too ambitious about what could be achieved in a single session, and needed to adjust the plans in light of how much could be meaningfully achieved.
  2. Logistical complexity: Planning for the series of events involved complex logistics and competing requirements. One event was accidentally planned over a major religious festival (Eid). As soon as the team realised the error, they reached out to participants to understand how many would be affected, discussed options for moving the session and outline alternative methods of engagement for those affected i.e. to run an online session to catch up those who missed it if it were a small number. Despite significant concern from the council team about the impact of the error, participants were pleased with the swift and transparent response, making it possible to re-plan the event without ongoing negative impact.

Top lessons:

  1. Valuing deliberation and dialogue: Especially on complex issues, there is huge value in allowing space for conversation and learning across different groups of people. This does have implications for planning, and you might have to adjust your activities more frequently than usual. It’s important to see community participation as a conversation, rather than a chance to get input and move on.
  2. Involve senior decision-makers at inception, and throughout: Communities are often keen to hear from senior decision-makers, and to have their views heard at that level. Where possible, creating meaningful open conversations with senior officers and members can be constructive for both sides.
  3. Be clear on parameters, objectives, roles and responsibilities: Especially when you are running a new type of activity, it’s really important to invest time up front in defining and clearly communicating how you expect the activity to run, and what will change as a result. When communicating with participants – both at the start and throughout – ensure that you are clear as to why they are there, what their role is (and isn’t), and how this connects to the overall motivating end goal. It is equally important to communicate clearly internally and with partners about exactly what the parameters for the project are, and what the roles and responsibilities of each party are. Where challenges or conflicts arise, these need to be quickly addressed as they will be harder to resolve if people have invested more time while having different assumptions.
  4. Focus on facilitation: Having experienced facilitators on board was a key success factor in sessions going well. Whether by finding other facilitators to work with, or developing your own skills and confidence as a facilitator (link to resources section), make sure to consider from the start how you will make sure that your sessions are well facilitated.

Sources:

Name of project: Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change and Biodiversity 2023

Led By: Sustainability Team, Barnet Council

Summary: The council ran a Citizen’s Assembly on climate change and biodiversity to better understand the community’s views on how Barnet should achieve its sustainability targets.

The situation: After declaring a climate emergency in 2022, Barnet Council committed to becoming a Net Zero council by 2030, and a Net Zero borough by no later than 2042. However it was clear that increasing sustainability across Barnet would require a whole-council and whole-place approach. As a complex issue that stretches across lots of areas of public life, achieving Net Zero targets would only be possible through collaboration between individuals, households, businesses, institutions and government.

The approach: Tackling the issue via a Citizens’ Assembly was a manifesto commitment from the incoming administration, rooted in a desire to ensure that this complex agenda would be driven by the priorities of Barnet residents. By bringing together a randomly selected group of people who broadly represent the entire community, the Citizens’ Assembly was designed to provide a platform for a diverse group of people to voice their opinions, learn and discuss issues together. The ultimate goal was to understand how to deliver sustainability collectively as a borough, with all of the community playing a role together. This was Barnet’s first experience of a deliberative assembly focused on a single theme.

Facilitated by an external agency, Assembly members worked together to write a vision for a more sustainable Barnet. It was written to reflect their broad view on the changes required to act on the climate emergency, and what the borough needs to consider to enable a fair and equitable future. The outputs of the process were a series of recommendations to inform council policy, and considering how to put community participation at the heart of the council’s approach to this area of work in future activity.

The details:

Process: The Citizens’ Assemblies brought together 60 randomly selected residents aged 12-90 from across the borough between February and May 2023 to develop recommendations in response to the question: “Barnet has declared a climate emergency. What more can we do together to make Barnet more sustainable, now and in the future?”

40 residents aged 18+ took part over 30 hours of sessions, and 20 residents aged 12-17 took part over 24 hours of sessions as part of a young people’s assembly. The two groups came together at key points to share their experiences, ideas and report presents the work that they did together. Participants had opportunities to hear from experts on the key issues, engage directly with senior decision-makers, explore the values that should inform decision-making, and discuss potential visions for the future.

Themes explored by both Assemblies were based on the council’s draft sustainability action plan. These ware areas identified as having both the scope to significantly reduce the borough’s carbon emissions and protect its biodiversity and require borough-wide action. Recommendations were developed following opportunities to share experiences and learn about climate change and sustainability in Barnet and beyond, supported by presentations and interactive activities. The eventual recommendations included a clear set of citizen-led priorities, and an outline of how different stakeholders (including individuals and the community as a whole) should work together to achieve the shared vision.

Working with partners: The project included significant work with partners, which was particularly helpful given the new and ambitious nature of the activities. Initial participant recruitment was carried out by a not-for-profit organisation that specialises in recruiting and selecting people by lottery to take part in these kinds of events, in a way that is broadly representative of the wider population. This was really useful for making sure that there was a genuinely diverse group of participants involved, in a way which was particularly relevant for the topic concerned (e.g. ensuring a mixture of professional statuses given the differing transport requirements of different occupations). The Sustainability team also worked with another external partner to structure the overall process and engage with participants. It was important to work closely with partners to set clear parameters about exactly what responsibilities sat where – both at the outset of the project, and on an ongoing basis. Throughout, the Sustainability team needed to be clear and transparent about the unique role of the council, both in setting the parameters of the project, and on bringing local knowledge and connections.

Setting up for successful deliberation: At the heart of this approach was a commitment to opening up difficult decision-making to residents. That often meant sharing complex information, for example about climate science, council responsibilities etc. The team found that it was helpful to provide information in multiple different formats to suit different participants e.g. video, slides, notes etc. Initially the team were over-reliant on slides and recognised that not all participants were able to digest the information when presented like this. It also worked well to arrive prepared with concrete examples that residents could relate to when discussing potential policy changes i.e. to help residents visualise how a specific service that they were already familiar with might be affected. In general, the project was informed by the principle that giving citizens the information they needed to tackle these complex issues might take time, but was always achievable and hugely valuable.

Challenges:

  1. Timescales: Deliberation activities typically require more time than usual consultation meetings. In the case of the Citizen’s Assembly this was 30 hours of citizen deliberation time, requiring 6 months of full-time planning from within the council. The team often found that they were too ambitious about what could be achieved in a single session, and needed to adjust the plans in light of how much could be meaningfully achieved.
  2. Logistical complexity: Planning for the series of events involved complex logistics and competing requirements. One event was accidentally planned over a major religious festival (Eid). As soon as the team realised the error, they reached out to participants to understand how many would be affected, discussed options for moving the session and outline alternative methods of engagement for those affected i.e. to run an online session to catch up those who missed it if it were a small number. Despite significant concern from the council team about the impact of the error, participants were pleased with the swift and transparent response, making it possible to re-plan the event without ongoing negative impact.

Top lessons:

  1. Valuing deliberation and dialogue: Especially on complex issues, there is huge value in allowing space for conversation and learning across different groups of people. This does have implications for planning, and you might have to adjust your activities more frequently than usual. It’s important to see community participation as a conversation, rather than a chance to get input and move on.
  2. Involve senior decision-makers at inception, and throughout: Communities are often keen to hear from senior decision-makers, and to have their views heard at that level. Where possible, creating meaningful open conversations with senior officers and members can be constructive for both sides.
  3. Be clear on parameters, objectives, roles and responsibilities: Especially when you are running a new type of activity, it’s really important to invest time up front in defining and clearly communicating how you expect the activity to run, and what will change as a result. When communicating with participants – both at the start and throughout – ensure that you are clear as to why they are there, what their role is (and isn’t), and how this connects to the overall motivating end goal. It is equally important to communicate clearly internally and with partners about exactly what the parameters for the project are, and what the roles and responsibilities of each party are. Where challenges or conflicts arise, these need to be quickly addressed as they will be harder to resolve if people have invested more time while having different assumptions.
  4. Focus on facilitation: Having experienced facilitators on board was a key success factor in sessions going well. Whether by finding other facilitators to work with, or developing your own skills and confidence as a facilitator (link to resources section), make sure to consider from the start how you will make sure that your sessions are well facilitated.

Sources:

Page last updated: 22 Nov 2023, 12:12 PM