Citizens’ Assembly

The precise purpose of a citizens’ assembly varies according to context and practice. At its most basic, a citizens’ assembly aims to bring together a group of everyday people who broadly reflect the wider community, to deliberate on an important public issue and based on extensive learning and deliberation, provide recommendations. Recommendations can be on a specific policy, or more broadly on an issue. The assembly’s recommendations should inform policy and decisionmakers.  

Preparation phase 

In the first stages of the process, commissioning authorities need to think about why they want to convene a citizens’ assembly, and have a clear rationale and honesty about their expectations. They should be clear and transparent from the outset how they intend to receive and respond to any outputs.  

It is also important early on to make sure that people working in and with the city government have the opportunity to learn about the approach and get on board with the process.  

A topic/question/remit needs to be selected, but this does not have to be taken by the city alone; they should engage with a range of stakeholders with diverse perspectives, and can include citizens, in this process. This helps to ensure that stakeholders and citizens feel ownership and autonomy around the process rather than being dictated to. 

A governance body should be set up, again with a range of stakeholders and external experts who are knowledgeable about the process itself and the issue. This group provides advice throughout the process on best practice, as well as inputting into the select of experts and witnesses that provide information to the assembly. 

It is crucial that the assembly has sufficient resources to engage with broader publics. This can happen in a number of ways, including public submissions to the assembly, online platform discussions running parallel, outreach and community engagement activities which connect to the assembly, and establishing relationships with various media outlets to engage a wider audience in both the topic and the process. Doing this can contribute to the perceived legitimacy of the process. When a process is transparent and fair, people are more likely to accept the outcome even if it isn’t their preferred one [NEED REF]. 

Recruitment 

A core feature of citizens’ assemblies is that participants are recruited through a process of random stratified selection, with the aim of achieving a group that is broadly representative of the wider community. An external organisation specialising in this is usually recruited. A range of demographic criteria can be included including gender, age, education, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and more. Some assemblies also stratify for attitudes or political affiliation to ensure that there is diversity in these terms as well.  

Oversampling some groups might be required to ensure a representative sample. In order to maximise participation, it should be clear from the outset that participants will be financially compensated for their labour, and that the assembly can make other arrangements to support participation such as childcare and transport costs.  

Orientation and learning 

This is the start of the citizens’ assembly event itself. It’s the first time participants will meet each other, the organisers and the commissioning authority. During this phase, facilitators and organisers work to ensure that participants feel welcome, secure and comfortable. This is done through exercises to build a sense of common purpose and intention. 

During this phase, participants will learn more about their task and how their input will be used by the city. City government representatives should be present and meet participants.  

Following initial orientation, participants begin to learn about the issue at hand. Typically, this is done through presentations, Q&As, videos, written material from a range of experts in the subject. There are more imaginative and inclusive ways to do this, considering different learning styles. They may include site visits or tours, lived experience and testimony from people affected by or knowledgeable about the issue. It is crucial that participants hear a diversity of views and they have the opportunity to request more information and call for certain speakers to contribute.  

Deliberation 

During this phase, participants deliberate over the information provided during the learning phase, related issues, and possible recommendations. Discussions are usually guided by a facilitator/s whose role it is to support the participants and guide them through the process – not guide them towards a specific outcome. Facilitators are trained in how to try and ensure discussion is deliberative, that is, respectful, non-coercive, and oriented towards public interest.  

Recommendations 

Continuing the deliberation, participants work together to draft, refine and define recommendations that they will present to commissioning authorities. This usually requires some kind of decisionmaking process which can vary. It might involve a vote, it might be consensus-based. It usually allows for the inclusion of a minority viewpoint. 

The preparation of recommendations is best done either by participants themselves or in collaboration with them and the organisers. Minority views should be included in the final report and members of the assembly typically present their final outputs to commissioning authorities.  

Response and follow up  

Authorities then need to provide an official response to the assembly. There is some time needed for commissioining authorities to digest the recommendations but their response should be timely and lay out exactly how they are going to use the assembly’s recommendations, following the commitments given at the outset.  

Commissioning authorities must then over the coming months provide regular updates on the progress of action on the recommendations, such as policy development, funding and implementation.  

There should be sufficient budget and planning in place so that organisers and authorities can stay in touch with the assembly participants and support them in their own communities, should they wish to undertake further participatory activities independently. In the best case scenario, further assemblies or follow on processes are also set up, either involving some of the same participants, or new randomly selected participants. These may be fulfil different roles in the policy cycle such as monitoring implementation of the recommendations or further refinement during policy development. 

Citizens’ Assemblies should be evaluated according to process (how well was it organised and run, participant experience, integrity and quality of the process) and outcomes (quality of recommendations, government response, which recommendations were implemented, how are authorities held accountable).  

OECD evaluation guidelines for deliberative processes can be used as a starting point to best practice for evaluation.