GIS and Evidence-Based Policy Making - Chapter 15 (end)

Section II Engaging with the Public 15 Engaging Citizens: The Bradford Community Statistics Project Derek Reeve, Erik Thomasson, Steve Scott, and Ludi Simpson CONTENTS 15.1 Introduction............................................................................................. 329 15.2 Policy Context ......................................................................................... 330 15.3 Project Context ........................................................................................ 332 15.4 Technical Features .................................................................................. 334 15.4.1 Boundary-Free Small-Area Estimates.................................... 334 15.4.2 User-Defined Target Areas ..................................................... 337 15.4.3 Information Dissemination Rather Than Analysis.............. 338 15.5 Data Issues............................................................................................... 339 15.6 Community Use...................................................................................... 341 15.7 Organizational Context.......................................................................... 343 15.8 Conclusions.............................................................................................. 344 References ........................................................................................................... 345 15.1 Introduction Engaging the active participation of citizens in the processes of civic govern-ance has been a laudable, if largely unrealized goal, of local governments for decades. Recently, this goal has been much reemphasized in the United King-dom. Almost every recent U.K. government initiative places a clear onus on local governments to collaborate with their communities. Local authorities mustnowestablishcommunitystrategiesandformlocalstrategicpartnerships to reflect community interests. In the main, however, the public have been 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. steadfastly disinterested in participation exercises. Participation in local elec-tions and attendance at local meetings are usually depressingly low. The Internet has recently been seized upon as a new vehicle with whic to reengage the public. Visionaries look forward to a future in which Internet based systems will be used to involve citizens in developments in their locality encouraging citizens to interact directly with professionals and policy makers in local decision-making processes. Because many of the issues that affect local government are land or property based, WebGIS are seen as having a majo role to play within this movement towards Internet participation. There is already a significant literature describing experiments in public participation GIS (PPGIS) (Craig et al., 1998; ESF-NSF, 2001; Laurini, 2001). Achi eving the future, howeve r, is always more difficu lt than the visio n ies, and vendors, sugges t. The rhetor ic surrou nding PPGIS has raced f ahead of re ality as rep resented by presen t PPGIS. We bGIS package s pro the te chnologie s by which local ag encies might deliver spat ial informati into the homes of citi zens but we still are at the very beginn ing of the le curve of unde rstandi ng how to desi gn systems based on these techn olog effici ently to engage the publi c’s intere st. We need to unde rstand w inform ation shou ld be pr esented , how that inform ation is mo st effecti pre sented, and what is require d fo r the publ ic to be able to use the i tion . It is doubtf ul if any pre sent PPG IS could yet claim to have bec major channel for participation between citizens and policy makers. We are still at the stage of seeing what works, of experiments and projects. This paper contributes to the continuing PPGIS debate by detailing the PPG IS built for the Bradfor d Comm unity Statist ics Pro ject (BCSP ; w bcsp -web.or g). The BCSP’s Maps and Stat s syst em is an innov ative purposeful PPGIS, the lessons from which should be of interest to both researchers and other local governments. Some PPGIS sites appear primar-ily to be designed to disseminate prepared mapped-based information to residents and, with such sites, the manner in which the data are presented remains largely controlled by the sites’ owners. The primary purpose of the Maps and Stats system, however, is to put into the hands of residents the datasets and online tools necessary to allow them, independently, to research conditions within their communities. Our site invites users to actively engage with data, rather than passively to receive them. A further distinctive feature of the BCSP is that the Maps and Stats PPGIS has been developed as one element within a broader project to build the capacity of local communities to understand and critically appraise the statistical bases upon which decisions about their localities are being made. 15.2 Policy Context The U.K. government has rediscovered the policy significance of urban social geography. There is presently very great concern about the spatial 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. dimension of social exclusion, the belief being that some localities are effectively excluded from the standards of well-being which are considered the norm in the rest of society. Furthermore, there is a determination that such spatial inequalities will be reduced: ‘‘Within 10 to 20 years, no one should be disadvantaged by where they live’’ (Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, 2001). A range of area-based policy initiatives designed to promote convergence of social conditions between communities have been developed, e.g., Health Action Zones, Education Action Zones, Sports Action Zones, Excellence in Cities Action Zones, Sure Start, Anticrime local partnerships, the New Deal for Communities, and the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund PACT areas. In addition to U.K. government initiatives, quasi-government funding bodies, including the National Lottery Board, target significant resources into urban areas via area-based bidding processes. The EU also uses area-based statis-tics to direct very large structural regeneration funds to selected areas. Although each of these policies differs in detail, there are recurrent themes presented below: . Territorial: There is an emphasis upon drawing boundaries. Such territorial delineation is seen as a means of most effectively allo-cating limited resources. There is, however, a clear equity issue with area-based policies: Communities within designated areas will qualify for assistance under particular initiatives, those out-side will not. The onus is upon policy makers to ensure that boundaries are drawn appropriately. . Evidence-based: The mechanism for justifying the delineation of boundaries depends heavily upon statistical profiling. To qualify for assistance, areas have to display specified characteristics. Once designated, statistics are used to measure the progress of areas towards target norms. A clear emphasis within recent policy making has been upon evidence-based approaches. Actually, there is nothing particularly new about this approach to urban policy making. In the United Kingdom, there has been a tradition of small-area policy initiatives. During the 1970s for example, there were housing action areas (HAAs) and general improvement areas (GIAs), the purposes of which were to identify small pockets of need within cities and then to channel resources into the areas affected. There is also, of course, a long tradition of spatially-based multiple deprivation and territorial social indi-cator studies, which have used statistical techniques to identify communi-ties in need (Knox, 1975; NCRNRD, 1998; Senior, 2002). More novel strands within current small-area policy making might be: . Multiagency: There is an expectation that local providers of ser-vices to communities—local and central government departments, 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. health and police authorities—will coordinate their initiatives towards localities. Cross-cutting initiatives are in vogue and the joined-up approach to government is being road-tested within the local policy-making arena. . Communityinvolvement:Akeyfeatureofcurrentlocalpolicymaking is a concern that communities should be active partners in the policiesthataredevelopedfortheirareas.Thereisconcerntoreduce thealienationfrom governmentalprocessesthat areacharacteristic of socially deprived areas. Within current policy initiatives, there-fore,thereisanemphasisuponreengagingwithlocalcommunities, although in practice community and voluntary groups may well retain a degree of cynicism about being the beneficiaries of another round of top–down policy initiatives. To realize such policy initiatives local governments and other local agen-cies are being required to reconsider the ways local decision-making is conducted. On a pragmatic level, there is a great need to ensure that good quality small-area statistics are available to allow the characteristics of localities to be probed. At a national level, the need for improved small-area statistics is emphasized within the National Strategy for Neighbour-hood Renewal initiative: ‘‘Better information needs to be available for all involved in strategy development, service design, and delivery at the local level. This should make it more likely that problems are diagnosed and effective answers produced. It also fits well with the need to involve local people more in playing their part and holding public services to account’’ (Social Exclusion Unit, 2000, p. 8). And at the local authority level, there is an onus upon local agencies to share their datasets and to integrate their policy making more fully than has previously been the case. There is also a clear expectation placed upon local government to reener-gize its methods of public engagement. Rather than going through the rites of public participation, there is now an expectation that communities must be genuinely active partners in formulating the policies that affect them. 15.3 Project Context Against this national background, the BCSP is an attempt to enhance the capacity of community groups to participate more fully, and more equally, in the local policy debates that affect their communities and, specifically, to help residents to understand the statistical manipulations involved in local area policy making and grant allocation procedures. The Maps and Stats PPGIS is also seen as providing a platform that will facilitate the efficient integration and dissemination of previously disparate datasets. The BCSP is a joint initiative between the Research and Consultation Service of the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council (CBMDC) 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. and the Bradford Resource Centre (BRC), the BRC being a not-for-profit organization that provides a focal point for community groups within the district. The project was funded by a grant from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), with matching funds provided by the CBMDC. In its bid for funding, the BCSP provided a succinct statement of its aims: (a) Increase the capacity of community groups to effectively use stat-istical information sources (b) Make accessible via the Internet local statistics for community groups’ own areas (c) Support the voluntary sector in making a case for statistics which are more appropriate to their needs. To achieve objective (a) a team of workers was established within the BRC with a remit to liaise with local community groups and to foster among such groups confidence that they can make effective use of statistical data for their own purposes. The BRC team provided informal ‘‘drop-in statistical surgeries’’ focused on helping community activists develop skills in the critical use of statistical sources and also developed a one-day ‘‘Strength in Numbers’’ course to explore the issues in a deeper and more structured way. Ongoing support has also been provided to those undertaking com-munity research. Objective (c) sprang from a concern among community researchers that official statistics often fail adequately to reflect the concerns of community and voluntary organizations and that the community should have a role not only in interpreting existing statistics but also in influencing how and which statistics are made available. The Maps and Stats WebGIS was developed to achieve objective (b), this development being undertaken primarily by officers based within the Research and Consultation Service of CBMDC, although an aspect of the capacity building activities of the BRC team has been to introduce the Maps and Stats facility as a source of relevant statistical information and to feedback users’ comments to the technical development team. In building the Maps and Stats WebGIS the intention was to provide citizens with the datasets and tools necessary to allow them to conduct their own small-area analyses and thus to develop policy and funding proposals independent of council involvement. For the first time, there would be a single, comprehensive, consistent, and maintained small-area policy dataset for the district, delivered via an easily queried online system—freely available to anyone who is interested. Whereas in the past, community groups would have needed to go to the council to obtain access to relevant statistics, increasingly it is envisaged that such statistics would be available directly via the Maps and Stats WebGIS. The BCSP recognized that the role of the local authority, and other local agencies, as gatekeepers of local information should be lessened. GIS has been criticized as a technology that further concentrates the control of knowledge within 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. ... - tailieumienphi.vn