Lessons from a People's Panel

It’s been over five years since I first digested the political red pill – “Against Election: A case for democracy” by David Van Reybrouck. From then on, the illusion that politicians and parties are the only solution societies’ ills, was exactly that.

A political system which rewards individual ambition and is defined by factions of self-interest is not equipped to make decisions in everyone’s interest. Obviously.

The solution is sortition. A way to bring together people like you and me to learn, deliberate and decide on solutions. Anyone who has had the misfortune to share a few beers with me over the past five years would attest to this.

I’ve become fully immersed in its potential to shape our future. The legitimacy of my ramblings helped by the fact that there are now hundreds of examples of its successful implementation across the globe. I’ve had countless conversations on its prospective and practical implementation; I’ve sat on the board of Directors at the Sortition Foundation; I’ve designed and delivered processes on an organisational level; I’ve set-up the International Network of Sortition Advocates (INSA); I’ve committed to a lifelong goal of embedding people powered processes in organisations with sortition at the centre.

However, for much of this time I’ve felt a fraud. I’d yet to witness civic process in action.

So, I reached out to a friend in this space, Andy Paice, a renowned and well-respected facilitator with an impressive track record of design and delivery. He kindly invited me to be part of the team for the Cheshire East People’s Panel on the Cost-of-Living Crisis in collaboration with Positive Money. With my credibility restored, here are a collection of key learnings from a great couple of weekends.

These cover four general observations on embedding participatory processes and two related to the process design. These are personal reflections, and I’ve made effort to not go too much into the detail of the discussions and leave that to the report once it’s published. For what it’s worth, these aren’t ground-breaking insights. In fact, I’d surmised similar conclusions prior from speaking with second hand sources. However, I think there is value in confirming and capturing these here:

1. Incentives matter – Due to my background, I was uniquely interested in the selection methodology. However, what mattered most to both convenors and participants is the panel passing the ‘not your usual suspects’ eye test. It was a broadly representative of East Cheshire residents with special efforts to include those most affected by the cost-of-living crisis. This wasn’t by accident. Beyond algorithms, you can maximise chances of representation by incentivising participation with money or in this case, vouchers. A simple recognition of their commitment to take part. One panel member remarked early on that she had only came along for the voucher, as it would allow her to buy her daughter something nice for Christmas. Once she’d arrived, she was fully engaged, her contribution to the discussion more valuable than any second-hand assumption from those designated to speak on our behalf.

2. People just want to be heard – By lunchtime on the first day, the overwhelming feedback was that the people of the Panel valued being heard. We all have opinions, and this was an opportunity to meaningfully direct it. Much was reliant on the skill of the facilitators to orchestrate this, elegantly bringing together a symphony of the voiced and the voiceless. Following on, the responsibility now falls with the convenors to ensure that this is not another empty exercise in democracy. Regardless, those, like myself, who are too caught up in the motivation to dismantle dominant power structures can overlook the impact of a deep, meaningful conversation with a group of people you’d never normally meet.

3. Politics isn’t just politicians – Early on there was a healthy scepticism on the potential for impact without involvement from Westminster. Accurately reflecting the reality of an unbalanced UK political system where local councils have limited economic and political power. Efforts were made early on to distinguish the scope of impact of the panel, which helped to set the direction on the proposals. At the end of the first weekend, a few local MPs, which included a former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and a current Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, were invited to attend. As it was the week where their own living crisis erupted, they politely declined. Undeterred, the participants, guided by the facilitation team, moved towards solutions. A healthy balance between community focused actions and lobbying the central power, who still admittedly play an outsized role in the potential of a localised response.

4. Pol.is as a tool for ideation – One of the best bits of the process design was the use of Pol.is, an open source, interactive survey for gathering input from large groups of people. This extended the scope of contribution from those who did not make it to the final panel of 20. It helped to enrich the conversation, as it identified areas of disagreement and consensus from residents across East Cheshire. One of the most valuable aspects was how it helped with the creative process of coming up with recommendations. Having access to a greater range of contributions helped participants think outside their recently formed bubbles and mean to much more diverse range of recommendations.

5. Collaborative questioning – There were a range of ‘experts’ who presented to the panel on the reality and solutions to the Cost-of-Living Crisis, some in person and some online. After a short presentation they fielded questions from the panel. For those in person, this was facilitated in a round table carousel. For those online it followed a standard panel Q+A format. The difference in engagement between the two were stark, and it exposed the binary set up of a question-and-answer format, be it in a private committee or a public consultation. The carousel format favoured collaboration as it allowed both experts and participants to have a more nuanced, deliberative conversations. This really exposed the us and them nature of normal panellist discussions and how it embeds the oppositional politics that we are usually exposed to.

6. Assemblies, juries, and panels – In two jam-packed weekends, the participants managed to come together, understand the topic, come up with and decide on 12 recommendations to take forward to East Cheshire Council. It took some expert process design and nimble facilitation to enable this. This was after all a “People’s Panel”, the younger of it’s more esteemed sibling a “Citizens’ Assembly”. However, the success of this mini process measured by engagement, tangible recommendations, and demand for more from all that took part underlined the importance of diversifying the approaches and regularity of public participation. Unfortunately, without detailed systemic reform these will be subject to the resource constraints, so we must be creative in the design and implementation. Citizen Assemblies have their place, as do Citizen Juries, Wisdom Councils and many similar examples. The public are crying out for ways to be authentically heard, the system is crying out to hear them whether is cares to admit it or not. The practitioners can worry about designing effective processes and can then apply the suitable jargon where necessary.

Final thanks to the facilitation team Andy, Eva and Paul and the crew from Positive Money - Rachel, Anna and Nicole for your good vibes over the two weekends!