I noticed an interesting article in the Guardian today about the coalition Government’s recent crowdsourcing experiment. The article reflects on how despite thousands of suggestions being received from members of the public, the Government’s published responses indicate that no policies are changing as a result.

The coalition asked the public to respond to its programme on government websites. It received 9,500 replies online. However, its formal responses, published on each website, shows Whitehall regarded the process largely as an endorsement of what it was already doing. In cases where most of the submissions conflicted with existing policy, the department simply restated the policy. The departmental responses were published last Friday without publicity.

The Guardian quote Simon Burrall of Involve who highlights the impact this may have on trust and confidence in the Government and willingness to participate in future.

I also found the article very interesting in light of some of the findings I’m currently writing up from my own research, into attitudes and perceptions to engagement with local government via social media.

I’ve found that if people believe they will receive feedback and that their participation will lead to a positive outcome, their attitude towards using social media for engagement is more positive.

And a positive attitude towards participation via social media is more likely to lead to actual participation. So if, as a policy maker, you are looking to increase participation among groups who are traditionally less inclined to participate, changing their beliefs about the outcomes and feedback they will receive is likely to be important.

It sounds obvious, and it probably is. But there’s nothing like a bit of empirical evidence to back up your hunches.

Another of the findings in my study was that participants perceived resource constraints to be a major issue in dealing with online participation. I wonder if the government found that it simply didn’t have sufficient time and people to moderate and evaluate the suggestions it was receiving?

Participants in my research also perceived the quality of dialogue to be a factor which would influence their willingness to participate. Another recent Guardian article mused about the difficulties encountered by the Spending Challenge website with malicious attacks and offensive posts.

So, an interesting time for the government and its use of crowdsourcing techniques.

Thankfully I’m glad to say that crowdsourcing does seem to work well for some forms of civic participation, but they tend to be more ‘bottom-up’ than ‘top-down’ driven. Both FixMyStreet and SeeClickFix are good examples.