People’s Policy is a method of citizen-led policy development, designed to generate long-term solutions to complex problems in a non-partisan, collaborative way.
Name of Method
Brief description
People’s Policy aims to generate detailed, comprehensive policy proposals on a specific topic, rather than general recommendations, so it provides feasible, tangible policy solutions.
Type/Level of Method
Challenges
People’s Policy was initiated as an non-partisan antidote to short term, election cycle-driven politics, by bringing together citizens, experts and stakeholders to develop a detailed policy proposal with long term sustainability of the policy in mind.
Problem, Purpose and Needs
People’s policy aims to address short termism in policy making, where decisions in government can often be motivated by election cycles and short term appeals to perceived public opinion. People’s policy is initiated independently from government by civil society or intermediary organisations, and is strictly non-partisan to address these challenges.
Relevance to Climate Neutrality
Challenges
Thematic Areas
Impact Goals
Issue Complexity
Issue Polarisation
Enabling Condition
Essential Considerations for Commissioning Authorities
Because this method is run independent from governments, it is not commissioned as such by government. It is crucial that the city government is on board with the process and they should be engaged throughout as a stakeholder, rather than commissioner. They should be supported to understand the process, but not should not be able to steer it.
Engagement Journey
Governance Models and Approaches
Enabling Conditions
Democratic Purpose
Spectrum of participation
Communication Channels
Actors and Stakeholder Relationships
Experts from relevant fields are invited to provide evidence to citizen participants, and participants can request specific evidence and experts. The process is funded by a coalition of stakeholder and philanthropic organisations, but could be funded externally.
The coalition of stakeholders should be diverse and represent the interests of marginalised and affected communities, not only stakeholders with vested interests. This coalition helps to decide the scope of the topic and question that citizen participants will address, although this process can and should also involve the participants and citizens themselves. Government actors from all parties may also participate in the coalition of stakeholders. The final policy should be presented to all political parties.
Participant Numbers
Actors and Stakeholders
Participant Recruitment
Interaction between participants
Format
Social Innovation Development Stage
Scope
Time commitment
People’s Policy requires a good deal of planning and building relationships prior to citizens meeting. This preparation phase, as well as the meetings, should take place over several months in order to ensure a robust process that can produce a high quality policy.
Resources and Investments
Typical duration
Resources and Investments
In-house
Step by Step
Establishment
- The first phase is to establish the process. This involves the leading organisation bringing together a coalition of stakeholders and drafting question and remit options for the policy. Citizens can also be involved in this process. The coalition of stakeholders is also established to oversee the process and provide credibility and accountability throughout.
- The recruitment of participants also needs to be planned early on, including methods for recruitment, precise number, and so on. This involves the smaller group of participants who work on the policy during deliberation, and considering how broader publics can take part.
The Panel
- A panel of up to 50 citizen participants, recruited through sortition, meet (preferably in person) for several days (spread out over a few weeks). During this time, they consider evidence presented by experts, and submitted by stakeholders and industry. These meetings are facilitated by an independent facilitator, and stakeholders may join as well.
- In addition to the meetings, the panel is supported by the lead organisation to self-organise and conduct additional research and work on the topic. This might take the form of meeting online, designing and conducting surveys in their own communities, interviewing affected people in their community, and advocating for and promoting the process.
- During the panel meetings, citizen participants are supported to develop the policy through working collaboratively with experts and stakeholders on the topic at hand. The policy is written by the panel with support from organisers. The final policy should be comprehensive, detailed and specific. It is a policy document, not a set of recommendations for policy.
The Launch
- The panel and coalition of stakeholders lead the launch and presentation of the policy to all political parties and the public. The panel are responsible for explaining the process and their policy during public launch meetings, where local media are also invited to join and cover the story. It is important during this phase that the leading organisation ‘hands over’ the entire process and outcome to citizen participants. In order for the policy to gain traction, its advocacy and implementation should also be citizen-led.
- Leaders from all political parties are invited to publicly state whether they endorse and will implement the policy in full or in part.
Evaluation
Connecting Methods
Deliberative Processes: deliberative techniques are used during panel sessions and overall People’s Policy requires deliberation between diverse viewpoints and weighing of evidence.
Collective Intelligence: People’s Policy can engage wider publics in the process by making use of their collective intelligence, inviting people to share their knowledge and experience as evidence for the citizen participants to consider.
Sortition: also known as civic lottery, this can be used to support the recruitment of a representative sample of citizen participants.
Stakeholder Map or Ecosystem Map: because People’s Policy is strictly non-partisan, it needs to have the active involvement and commitment of a diverse range of stakeholders. Stakeholder or ecosystem mapping supports this aim.
Flexibility and Adaptability
People’s Policy is an emergent method, and its designers, DemocracyCo emphasise that future uses of the method can adapt it according to needs and context. In particular, citizen participants can be supported to take greater control and ownership of the topic and procedures. The core features that shouldn’t be compromised are that the method is an independent process from government, and is non-partisan. These principles are central to the People’s Policy approach for long term policymaking.
Existing Guidelines and Best Practice
References and Further Resources
DemocracyCo. People's Policy: Childrens' Wellbeing, South Australia. Retrieved from https://www.democracyco.com.au/our-projects/peoples-policy-childrens-wellbeing/
Participedia. People's Policy. Retrieved from https://participedia.net/method/5229
Participedia. People's Policy on Children's Wellbeing. Retrieved from https://participedia.net/case/5228
DemocracyCo. Launching the People's Panel on Child wellbeing. (2017, August 18). Retrieved from https://www.democracyco.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Press-release_LAUNCH_FINAL.pdf