scrutiny and social media

How Can Social Media Improve Scrutiny?

Dave Mckenna

Overview & Scrutiny Manager

Wales Scrutiny Officers Network Rhayader 20th May 2011

Aim of the presentation is to share:

• How different social media services can be used to support scrutiny work

• What we are doing in Swansea

• How social media can support the scrutiny 'community' in Wales

A Little About Us

Our aim

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

Our structure

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

Our Social Media

Seven Reasons Why We Have Invested in Social Media

1. No one really downloaded our newsletter…

2. Surveys told us there was low awareness of 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)

3. We thought it would help us gather evidence for our reviews…

4. We thought it could widen involvement in the work of the boards and committees

5. We wanted to overcome council formality…

6. …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

7. This is the world we now live in

• In 2010, 30.1 million adults in the UK (60 per cent) accessed the Internet every day or almost every day (ONS)

• 74% of people online use social media in the UK

• Facebook has 29 million UK users (62% of those online)

• Twitter has 5 million UK users

Seven Social Media Tools to Support Scrutiny

Wait! The First Rule of Social Media

Don’t focus on the technology, technology itself doesn’t do anything, there is a saying that we use in my council “there is no such thing as an IT project, there are only business projects”. The key message here is YOU need to focus on business problems and issues and if social media tools are part of the solution then great. But don’t force social media where it isn’t needed or wanted.

Carl Haggerty, Devon County Council

1. Blogging – for news sharing and comments

2. Twitter: For signposting, news and quick conversations

3. Facebook: For reaching the public (hopefully)

4. Scrutiny Timebank: A dedicated Welsh resource

5. Yammer: For engaging with your co-workers

6. Communities of Practice: A type of ‘extranet’ (soon to be Knowledge Hub)

7. Linkedin: For engaging with business and professionally

...and many, many more...

Oh, and don’t forget email. Yes, really.

Seven things you need to get started

1. Advice from your web manager

2. Support from your line manager

3. Buy-in from your team

4. Knowledge of the relevant policies

5. A ‘business plan’

6. Corporate permission

7. Access to sites

Seven things we have learnt

1. Be clear why you are using each tool

2. Live the values of each tool

3. Focus on things relevant to real people

4. Use the ‘language of questions’

5. Develop and use a consistent brand

6. Use a range different media

7. Communicate as people - be friendly, readable and fun

Seven Ideas for Your Social Media Plan

1. Redesign your webpages

2. Give each committee their own homepage

3. Work with your councillors to build their capacity

4 Think about how to ensure staff engagement

4. ... by building links through your internet / intranet?

5. Link up with others in your council who are using social media

6. Build social media into everyone’s day job

I really don’t know how they have time for all this emailing and such – maybe they don’t have enough work to do?

7. Think about social media as a method of public engagement

7. Think about social media as a method of public engagement

Finally, where do we want to get to?

Citizen Integration

Conversation

Communication

Caution

Collaboration

“We are keeping a watching brief”

“We want to raise awareness and share news about our work”

“We want two way dialogue about the things we are scrutinising”

“We want to share resources and contribute to the work of others”

“We want to build our work around direct engagement with individual citizens”

*Developed from an idea by @DanSlee and @CarlHaggerty

The ladder of sociable scrutiny*

So, what do you think about...

• How different social media services can be used to support scrutiny work?

• What we are doing in Swansea?

• How social media can support the scrutiny 'community' in Wales?

Thanks for listening – please keep in touch!

@SwanseaScrutiny

Scrutiny@Swansea.gov.uk

www.Swansea.gov.uk/Scrutiny