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“Just sociology”: looking beyond the technology of e-government to assure social value.

“Just sociology”: looking beyond the technology of e-government to assure social value. Mike Grimsley & Anthony Meehan. Outline. Context: public services and e-Government Social Value: Public Value + Engagement + Trust Case 1: Public Services and Production of Social Value

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“Just sociology”: looking beyond the technology of e-government to assure social value.

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  1. “Just sociology”: looking beyond the technology of e-government to assure social value. Mike Grimsley & Anthony Meehan SHU - 14 March 2007

  2. Outline • Context: public services and e-Government • Social Value: Public Value + Engagement + Trust • Case 1: Public Services and Production of Social Value • Case 2: Community Development and Social Value • Political Dynamics of Attainment and Under-attainment of Social Value • Moving the focus of our attention beyond ‘the technology’ SHU - 14 March 2007

  3. Public Services Context E-government goals include: • effectiveness • efficiency • community regeneration, sustainability, well-being “There is a need to understand the social value of government action; the impact of eGovernment systems and the way they contribute ‘social value’”.(Irani & Elliman, 2007) SHU - 14 March 2007

  4. A Second Context “We are making the public services user-led, not producer or bureaucracy led.” (Blair, 2001) E-government goals include: • private and 3rd sector capacity building • government “transformation” Citizen • State • Public • Political • Collective • Rights (After Clarke et al., 2007) Consumer • Market • Private • Economic • Personal • Opportunities Bureauratic Model • Locus of Expertise • Locus of Power • Public Interest Ethos Post-bureaucratic Model • Networks or Chains (PPP) • Provider of Choice • For Profit, Not-for-Profit, Social Entrepreneurship SHU - 14 March 2007

  5. Context: Choice-based Letting Significant change in approach to allocation of public housing: • Available properties advertised. • People registered as being in need may apply for properties. • Allocation determined according to priority and other policy considerations. • Encourages ‘out of borough’ and ‘non public sector’ alternatives. • Encourages a multi-agency approach to needs. • ICT-mediated route complemented by Local Estate and Central Housing Officers. SHU - 14 March 2007

  6. Two Case Study Organisations HC Councils: Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Merton, Royal Borough of Kingston, Westminster.  SHU - 14 March 2007

  7. Elements of Social Value • Public Value (Moore, 1995) • “normatively compelling collective purposes” (p30) identifiable in respect of ‘universal entitlements’ such as health, education, housing and sanitation, personal security, civil and criminal justice,… • related to values such as fairness, equity and/or equality – “people value the entitlements of others” • Engagement • promotes effectiveness and efficiency • driven by: • need to engage • structural opportunity to engage • ability to engage (c.f. Cummings, Heeks & Huysmans, 1993) • recommendation • Trust… SHU - 14 March 2007

  8. political, social and economic institutions vertical trust Rothstein, 2001; Grimsley, Meehan, Green and Stafford, 2003 horizontal trust community – family, friends, neighbours Trust “The level of trust in an organisation affects levels of use and engagement with services. Some [people] avoid contact with services they do not trust unless it is absolutely essential. This can have a direct impact on how well services meet the wider community's needs.” (MORI, Trust in Public Institutions: A Report for the UK Audit Commission 2003) “Trust is an expression of a community’s capacity to co-operate to achieve a better quality of life than would otherwise be available if its members acted merely as individuals.” SHU - 14 March 2007

  9. Willingness to Recommend E Changed Trust in Providers B C A D Users’ Experiences Users’/Citizens’ Experiences Public Value Service Outcomes ICT-mediated Service Provision Leads to Production of Social Value • Conceptual Framework and Analytical Pathways SHU - 14 March 2007

  10. 2315 TCH ‘IT-Users’ 244 responses (11%) 3625 TCH ‘non-IT-Users’ 427 responses (12%) August – Sept 2006 (about 6months post-launch) TCH Survey Older IT-users were under-represented. Older non-IT-users were over-represented. SHU - 14 March 2007

  11. Ease of Use Willingness to Recommend E Changed Trust in Providers B C A D Users’ Experiences Users’/Citizens’ Experiences Public Value Service Outcomes ICT-mediated Service Provision Leads to Service Experience 1 *Adjusted for Age group and Gender • Search • Secure Login • Apply • Track Application • Other Boroughs • Alternatives to Public Housing SHU - 14 March 2007

  12. Service Experience 2 SHU - 14 March 2007

  13. Willingness to Recommend E Changed Trust in Providers B C A D Users’ Experiences Users’/Citizens’ Experiences Public Value Service Outcomes ICT-mediated Service Provision Leads to Experience of (PV) Outcomes • PV Outcomes are about the extent to which people develop a community-level picture (even when the desired outcome eludes them personally). *Adjusted for Age group and Gender SHU - 14 March 2007

  14. Willingness to Recommend E Changed Trust in Providers B C A D Users’ Experiences Users’/Citizens’ Experiences Public Value Service Outcomes ICT-mediated Service Provision Leads to Trust and Recommendation • Trust is a powerful driver of recommendation. *Adjusted for Age group and Gender SHU - 14 March 2007

  15. political, social and economic institutions vertical trust horizontal trust community – family, friends, neighbours ICT ICT Mediation of Trust? Poorly designed/managed e-government will damage the relationship between citizen and public service provider… …and may have much wider implications for community well-being. SHU - 14 March 2007

  16. Change in Trust SHU - 14 March 2007

  17. horizontal trust vertical trust Trust in Public Services Drivers: • Well-informedness • Personal Control in Life • Influence/Contingency Grimsley, Meehan, Green and Stafford, 2003 SHU - 14 March 2007

  18. Chan & Harkness (2004) Home Connections Focus Groups Report. HC: Trust Reinforcement SHU - 14 March 2007

  19. Chan & Harkness (2004) Home Connections Focus Groups Report. HC: Threats to Trust SHU - 14 March 2007

  20. Public Service Outcomes Willing to recommend Client Experience Citizen/Client Experience Well-Informedness, Personal Control, Influence. Promotes Delivers Client Experience Trust Public Service Provision Client Experience Experiential Modulators of SV *Adjusted for gender and age group Grimsley & Meehan, 2007a SHU - 14 March 2007

  21. Gateway to Community Advice Online Context: Goals: • avoid social exclusion resulting from “digital divide”; • promote co-operation between community advice agencies to achieve multi-agency approach to clients’ needs. Strategy: • position voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) on the ‘right side’ of the digital divide; • support community advice agencies in developing an online presence that faces both their clients and (more importantly) other agencies. SHU - 14 March 2007

  22. Gateway to Community Advice Online • Directory services • Surveys & polls • Sharable/reusable documents • policies, procedures, reports, guidelines, codes, forms,… • Secure case discussion/referral fora • Links to national and local e-government services • Community awareness features • Local VCO control (design, content and administration) • Open Source Tools • Hosted by Greater London Authority – but may be hosted by VCO SHU - 14 March 2007

  23. 4-Capitals Perspective • Origins in the literature on growth and environmental economics (Ekins et al, 1992; Perlman et al, 2003). • Elaborated by Grootaert (1998) in the context of community sustainability. • Green et al (2001, 2005) developed the model and incorporated the capitals as key drivers of community wellbeing. • Hancock (2001) has given an interpretation of the 4-Capitals from a health perspective. SHU - 14 March 2007

  24. computing artefacts (hardware and software) which are created, purchased, integrated into the technological infrastructure that facilitate the goals of the system Interpreting the 4-Capitals Infrastructural Capital Environmental Capital ICT amenities that afford/mediate relations skills and competences required for the development, management, and use of the system, including communication, relational and governance skills Human Capital bonding, bridging and linking relations within and between stakeholders. We distinguish between the value arising from the existence of the relations and the value arising from the quality of the relations – with special reference to trust Social Capital SHU - 14 March 2007

  25. Infrastructural Capital Architectural Design System Management and Administration Environmental Capital Infrastructural Facilitation of Relationships Affordance Design Mediation of Relations Human Capital Relational Conduct and Management Social Capital  Relating 4-Capitals in Design Balancesheet Credit • Infrastructure • Software tool set • Initial technical skills  ~   ~ Debit • Advanced technical skills • Non technical skills • Relational context • Organisational Development for VCOs ~    SHU - 14 March 2007

  26. Social Capital: How to construct and sustain the required relationships? Relating 4-Capitals in Design Environmental Capital: What environmental resources are appropriate for mediation of the relations? Human Capital: What relational skills are available? need? attainable? Alignment Infrastructural Capital: What infrastructural resources are need to facilitate the relational environment? SHU - 14 March 2007

  27. A Second Context “We are making the public services user-led, not producer or bureaucracy led.” (Blair, 2001) E-government goals include: • private and 3rd sector capacity building • government “transformation” Citizen • State • Public • Political • Collective • Rights (After Clarke et al., 2007) Consumer • Market • Private • Economic • Personal • Opportunities Bureauratic Model • Locus of Expertise • Locus of Power • Public Interest Ethos Post-bureaucratic Model • Networks or Chains (PPP) • Provider of Choice • For Profit, Not-for-Profit, Social Entrepreneurship SHU - 14 March 2007

  28. Common Context? E-government Strategies: • ‘New Public Management’ (1980s-90s) “an inappropriate emphasis on narrow concepts of cost-efficiency and a downplaying of non-functional objectives that were difficult to measure…reduction of goals to simplistic targets that lend themselves to manipulation and contrivance in their attainment.”(Kelly, Mulgan, Muers, 2002; Moore, 1995) • ‘Citizens as Customers’ (late 1990s - ) Images of the citizen-consumer… “harvesting information”, “making informed choices in the market”, “walking away from public services which do not command their confidence”(Milburn, 2002) And of the poor… “The norm which is broken by the poor today … is the norm of consumer competence or aptitude.”(Bauman, 1998) SHU - 14 March 2007

  29. Some References • Bauman, Z. (1998) Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Buckingham, Open University Press. • Clarke, J., Newman, J., Smith, N., Vidler, E., Westmarland, L. (2007) Creating Citizen Consumers. London, Sage. • Cummings, Heeks and Huysmans (2003) Knowledge and Learning in Online Communities in Development: A Social Capital Perspective. Development Informatics Working Paper Series, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. • Green G., Grimsley, M. and Stafford, B., (2001) Capital Accounting for Neighbourhood Sustainability, CRESR, Sheffield Hallam University, UK. • Green, G., Grimsley, M. and Stafford, B. (2005) The Dynamics of Neighbourhood Sustainability, Joseph Rowntree Foundation: York Publishing Services. • Gilbertson J., Green G., Grimsley M. and Manning J. 2005. The Dynamic of Social Capital, Health and Economy. CRESR, Sheffield Hallam University, UK • Grimsley, M, Meehan, A, (2007a) e-Government systems: evaluation-led design for public value and trust. European Journal of Information Systems (in press – to appear May 2007). • Grimsley, M, Meehan, A, Tan, A, (2007b) Evaluative design of e-Government projects: a community development perspective. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy. (in press - to appear in Vol. 1, Issue 2, 2007). • Kelly, G., Mulgan, G. and Muers, S. (2002) Creating Public Value: An analytical framework for public service reform, Strategy Unit discussion paper, Cabinet Office. • Moore, M.H. (1995) Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. • MORI (2003) as Duffy, B., Browning, P. and Skinner, G. (2003). Trust in Public Institutions: A report for the Audit Commission. MORI. SHU - 14 March 2007

  30. Mike Grimsley & Anthony Meehan

  31. Supplementary Slides • For possible use in discussion. SHU - 14 March 2007

  32. Some Lessons/Issues (1) • Customer/client/citizen relates to whole process – need for seamless integration of all system elements, and in ways that support diversity and avoid exclusion. • Well-informedness is promoted by: • personalised proactive communication; • consistency/lack of contradiction; • and reinforced by trusted 3rd party mediation. • Personal control is promoted by: • flexibility (multiple paths to the same end); • clarity of where the initiative resides. • Sense of influence is promoted by: • timeliness of context sensitive communication/feedback. SHU - 14 March 2007

  33. Some Lessons/Issues (2) • It is possible to maintain trust (even if the desired outcome is very difficult to attain) by taking a holistic view of clients needs and proactively supporting the client in recognising and addressing these needs. • Introduction of e-government raises client and citizen expectations and it is these raised expectations that must be met. This is particularly challenging for developers and managers of e-government systems as the introduction of the system itself raises benchmark by which it will be judged. SHU - 14 March 2007

  34. Trust Management Matrix SHU - 14 March 2007

  35. Willingness to recommend TCH • IT-Users are more willing to recommend TCH. SHU - 14 March 2007

  36. Trust - ve + ve Experience The Hysteresis of Trust when trust is lost, there is rarely a quick and easy way to rebuild the relationship. SHU - 14 March 2007

  37. Alienation  exclusion Acting in the World voting? Exclusion Confidence Anxiety  exclusion Trust mental health? fear of crime? Note: Confidence and Trust are not linearly additive after Luhmann, 2001 SHU - 14 March 2007

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