Citizens' juries and assemblies are welcome - but there is much to consider in their implementation

We warmly welcome the recent announcement from Sue Gray that an incoming Labour government would embrace citizens' juries and assemblies as part of policymaking. Our decade long practical experience on the ground delivering and running both citizens' assemblies and juries, in the UK, but also worldwide (as part of the Global Science Partnership) illustrates the tremendous amount of benefit that juries and other similar types of process can bring for inclusive decision-making in government. Examples such as the Ireland citizen assemblies on same-sex marriage and abortion lead the way in showing how effectively such initiatives can work. Citizens’ juries and assemblies are not the only fruit – they are part of a wider ‘family’ of deliberative public engagement, known as ‘mini publics’, processes that can help enhance research and policymaking in a range of different ways. 

Why is this announcement so welcome?

If the most recent Labour government was critiqued for being overly technocratic in its approach, a new one has the potential to work with citizens’ juries and assemblies to address these critiques. An RSA/Populus survey in 2018 asked respondents to imagine that ordinary citizens were involved in informing economic institutions and decision-making, through participation in jury-style events (citizens’ juries, assemblies etc). The results were significant: 47 percent of respondents said that they would place more trust in those economic institutions that better engaged citizens whilst the figures for regional bodies such as councils and local enterprise partnerships were slightly higher, at 52 percent. (Patel, Gibbon, Greenham, Royal Society of Arts, Building a Public Culture of Economics, 2018)

Through our cumulative work with a wide range of policymaking organisations and bodies as practitioners running deliberative mini publics– we have witnessed first-hand how citizens worldwide can articulate their values and engage in respectful and meaningful dialogue with both policymakers and politicians. They have done this with great success on matters as complex as the pandemic response, NHS waiting times, artificial intelligence, economics and the cost of living, NHS health data , justice and rule of law, and climate science. Deliberative processes such as citizens’ juries and assemblies excel in addressing complex issues where trade-offs are inevitable and public opinion is paramount. Unlike focus groups, a representative sample of the population is convened, ensuring diverse perspectives are considered, with time for more considered views following deliberation.

Delivering citizens' juries and assemblies well

Building on from this announcement – our position is that Labour (and other political parties who might be wanting to match this agenda) should be even more ambitious in their agenda. For that ambition to be matched by the reality - the devil remains in the detail of the implementation – citizens’ juries, when done well can inform and shape good decision making, but done poorly, can contribute to lowered levels of trust. How can we safeguard and ensure the quality of these types of initiatives?  

There are three key points to consider in delivering these processes well: 

Independence, accountability and transparency: 

• Recruitment for citizens’ juries and assemblies should draw from and use  mechanisms such as sortition or a ‘civic lottery’ approach, a random selection process, to ensure representativeness and avoid biases inherent in self-selection. 
• Transparent recruitment processes enhance credibility and trust in the policymaking process, vital for their success.
• Participants should be financially compensated for their time, and supported for their participation in the process, and there should be good governance of the materials through an oversight group; with independent facilitators and partners involved in the delivery. 
• There should be a focus on investing in the quality of the delivery of the citizens’ jury or assembly, but that in and of itself is not enough.

Commitment to Authenticity and a Clear Feedback Loop: 

• Implementing citizens’ juries and assemblies also requires a genuine commitment from the commissioner. 
• There must be a clear question or challenge on the table up for discussion, and a decision to inform policymaking, with a clear feedback loop back to participants and wider society that can articulate what has changed as a result of engagement. 
• There must also be the scope for some discomfort or jeopardy for the policymaker – so that the process can meaningfully shape decision making. 
• Transparency about how citizens’ juries and assemblies inform policymaking, delineating what issues are up for discussion and the decision-making process, is crucial and commitment to the process avoids tokenistic consultation exercises, and helps tackle/address the legitimate critique that they are merely a mechanism for entrenching bureaucratic power.

Engaging the Wider Community:

• Addressing the challenge of engaging "everyone else’’ can often involve leveraging innovative methods such as crowdsourcing for inputs to the deliberative process and surveys to test the recommendations with a wider sample of uninformed people. Initiatives like Citizen Space, vTaiwan and Decidim in Spain are some good examples of how this can take place. 
• Additionally, the sample design for these processes is essential to get right so that people not involved can put their trust in the fact that ‘someone like me’ is represented, much like how this feels with a Crown Court jury. 
• It is also important to recognise the groups in society affected by the policy decision who might be excluded from the process, and how there may be a need to engage with these in parallel to the citizens’ jury or assembly. 

In conclusion, deliberative mini public processes represent a valuable innovation in democratic governance, offering a means to reinvigorate citizen engagement and foster deliberative decision-making. As we continue to explore new avenues for inclusive governance, Labour, and other political parties, must remain mindful of the broader context and the need for a balanced and comprehensive approach to democratic reform, that delivers the outcomes citizens expect, and helps transform the governance of policymaking.

For more information please see guidance that Ipsos has developed in this space:

• Ipsos Best Practice Deliberative Engagement Guide
• Global Science Partnership Inclusive Policymaking Toolkit