scrutiny social media and us
DESCRIPTION
Presentation for the local by social online conference November 2010TRANSCRIPT
Scrutiny, Social Media and Us
Dave Mckenna
Overview & Scrutiny ManagerPresentation for the
Local By Social Online Conference
November 2010
CautionSocial Media Amateurs at Work
!
Purpose of this presentation is to share:
• A little about local government scrutiny• Why we wanted to use social media• What we have done• What has been good, what could have been
better and some wishes
First, what is local government scrutiny?
A bit like parliamentary select committees but for local government
The aim of scrutiny in Swansea is…
To provide ‘critical friend’ challenge to the executive (and decision makers) by undertaking a range of overview and scrutiny activities to ensure that improvement is delivered, sustained and embedded
In a nutshell , the outcomes of effective scrutiny are:
Better Decisions
Better Policies
Better Services(this is why we do it)
Put simply…in bad Haiku..
Ask the right questionsInvestigate and proposeWays we can improve
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_D.C._Cherry_Blossoms.jpg
Scrutiny…
In Swansea we have 5 boards + 2 committees
Child and Family
Services
Children, Young
People & Learning
Environment & Communities
Health, Social Care &
Wellbeing
Performance and Finance
Partnership Business
Overview & Scrutiny Boards
Overview & Scrutiny Committees
…that need effective support
Project Management – work planning and organising for the boards & committees
Research – doing research, providing the analysis, presenting the results
Communications - drafting reports and giving presentations
Relationship Management – working with councillors, departments, partners and the public
Diplomacy – working in a politically sensitive environment
Overview & ScrutinyUnit (us)
Why social media?
No one really downloaded our newsletter…
Surveys told us there was low awarenessof what we do
Staff (157 responses)
Do you agree that you have a good understanding of the work of overview and scrutiny?
2010 2009
Strongly agree 10.4%(16) 6.6%(9)
Tend to agree 42.2%(65) 39.7%(54)
Tend to disagree 32.5%(50) 40.4%(55)
Strongly disagree 14.3%(22) 12.5%(17)
We thought it would help us get evidence for our reviews…
…and we thought it would widen involvement in the work of the boards and committees
We wanted to overcome council formality…
…and engage people in issues that really matter
Recycling
Corporate Parenting
Shared Services
Literacy in Schools
Community Alarms
Adult social care
Cycling
Youth Services
Public Transport
Regeneration Projects
What We Have Done
We spent time planning and came up with some principles
• Be clear why we are using which tools• Live the values of each tool• Focus on news relevant to people • Use the ‘language of questions’ • Use ‘swansea scrutiny’ as a consistent brand• Extend our use of different media• Communicate as people - be friendly, readable
and fun
We even made ourselves a logo!
This is the plan we made…
Minutes & Agendas via council site
Scrutiny web pages on council site
Staff intranet
Wordpress Blog
Slideshare
Flikr
Youtube
Staff
Councillors
National /Expert Bodies
“General” Public
Back End Interactive People
Corporate We support
Conversation
Multimedia
We use our blog to talk about our reviews and some of our meetings
We can now share presentations from meetings
We have even started making films!
We use Twitter mainly to signpost and to find out what’s happening nationally
We use Facebook to (try to) reach the public
We realised we had to redesign our webpages
Each board now has their own ‘homepage’
Three things good
1. We are fairly happy with the numbers
• In the first 6 months 613 unique visitors to the blog - 10% visited 3 times or more
• 192 twitter followers• 22 people ‘like’ us on facebook
2. It’s opened many new lines of communication
3. We have benefited from great help and support
• Duncan our Web Manager• Lee our Head of Service• Twitter & CoP friends:
– @ingridk– @davebriggs– @carlhaggerty– Many others!
Two things that could have been better
1. facebook – not sure it’s right for us
2. It’s been communication but not yet conversation
Three wishes
1. Better links from our internet / intranet would increase our traffic
2. New staff social media policies would help our internal engagement
3. More councillors engaging online would be better all round!
Thank you for (virtually) listening