Access negotiations

The process of gaining permission to set up a local political online forum within GBC’s website will be shown here. In March 2005 two proposals were developed to create two distinct online forums for two local government councils within the UK, Guildford Borough Council was one, and Brighton & Hove County Council was the other (see Appendix A). Two proposals were developed so that if one was rejected the research still

had a second avenue to pursue. The Brighton & Hove council already received funding under the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s local E-Democracy national project. The Brighton & Hove county council proposal was emailed to the supervisor in charge of this strategy. In terms of the GBC proposal, it took some time to contact the relevant GBC officer. Table 5.2 below details the steps taken in relation to gaining access to set up a forum with GBC.

Table 5.2

Date Action

01/04/05 Foster (1996) argues that because access negotiations play a significant

role within the entire research project it is extremely important to get such negotiations right at the beginning. After many emails and phone

conversations with GBC officials and councillors throughout April 2005 contact was made with the head of communications within the GBC. This officer subsequently became the research’s ‘Gate Keeper’ within the GBC, and the research proposal was emailed to her. ‘Gatekeepers usually

have positions of authority within the group or institution and can grant or withhold permission to hold research in their particular sphere of authority’ (Foster, 1996, p67).

18/04/05 & 26/04/05

Two meetings were arranged with GBC councillors to discuss the GBC proposal. One difficulty soon became apparent, the GBC proposal requested that one or more GBC councillors vote in line with the preference formed by citizens within the online forum prior to

deliberations. Both councillors had reservations on this issue (discussed below), and they requested that I contact them once access to the council had been negotiated.

28/04/05 A meeting was set up with the GBC gatekeeper to discuss the research proposal. The gatekeeper suggested choosing issues for the online forum from either the GBC’s Local Development Framework 2005 (a

consultation document, implying that no direct decisions would be taken for some time) or the council’s Forward Plan of Key Decisions

document. The issues in the Key Decisions document are voted on frequently by the GBC executive decision making body, and the GBC were interested in using the proposed online forum as part of a wider consultation on some of the issues within this document. It was for these reasons that the Key Decisions document was chosen to source topics for the forum.

Overall the gatekeeper said the proposal was workable but informed me that the proposal needed to be cleared with both the GBC IT department and the GBC democratic services department. ‘Gatekeepers will be

concerned to protect their own interests and the interest of the group members from any threat posed by the research’ (Foster: 1996:67). The

gatekeeper did note that there may be an issue with me taking the role as the forum moderator. The gatekeeper said that if access were to be granted to the GBC she would let me know by the 11/05/05. However

this did not happen.

20/05/05 The GBC IT department agreed to the research proposal.

31/05/05 The head of democratic services within GBC also agreed to the research proposal. At this time, the GBC gatekeeper emailed me to inform me that another meeting was required to discuss the research proposal.

02/06/05 A second meeting with the GBC occurred, GBC attendees included: the research’s gatekeeper, a local councillor involved with E-Government within the council, and the leader of the council. At this meeting access was negotiated to develop an online forum on the Department of Sociology’s (University of Surrey) server for Guildford Borough

Council’s website with me as the moderator. The University’s server was used to allow the moderator to administer the forum and edit its design. Secondly, the researcher was granted access to select one issue from the council’s ‘Forward Plan of Key Decisions’ document to place within the forum. Thirdly, GBC agreed to assist in both promoting, and setting up a steering committee for the forum.

However, the leader of the council made it clear that GBC councillors would not (in advance) agree to vote in line with the preferences formed within the online forum.

07/06/05 The gatekeeper requested that the research proposal be revised and emailed to her for clarification. At this stage Brighton & Hove county council were contacted to say other avenues of research had been agreed,

and they were thanked for their time.

11/07/05 The GBC gatekeeper informally agreed to the revised research proposal. 12/07/05 The research was formally given the go ahead.

22/08/05 A meeting was set up with the GBC gatekeeper to discuss the use of a topic that had been chosen for the online forum. At this meeting it was made clear that I was not permitted to choose GBC topics on my own accord. It was suggested that individual GBC officers be directly emailed in relation to using ‘Forward Plan of Key Decisions’ topics (under their remit) within the forum. The researcher could have set up an independent forum with all issues from the ‘Forward Plan of Key Decisions’ topics within it; however, the researcher agreed to the gatekeeper’s proposal because he wanted to answer the third question within this research i.e. is it beneficial to build local political online forums in conjunction with local government.

05/09/05 After some consideration it was decided that the forum required more

than one GBC topic for debate. There was a danger that if only one topic was chosen and citizens had no interest in this topic, no debate would occur within the forum. The GBC was requested to use more than one topic from the GBC ‘Forward Plan of Key decisions’ –permission was granted to do this.

Forward Plan of Key Decision topics were chosen using two criteria, 1, the topic was either interesting or contentious, and 2, the GBC executive were the sole decision making

body for the topic. Other topics under the decision making authority of various GBC committees were bound with a lot of regulations and red tape, and furthermore the GBC executive was the only real decision making authority with power within the council. The majority of local issues debated by the GBC council and GBC committees go to the GBC executive for decision making. Initially sixteen topics were chosen (examples of two are: what is the public’s view on the redevelopment of Guildford railway station; and where was the best location for new housing in Guildford) and eight GBC officers were emailed and asked if the topics under their responsibility were suitable for the forum. GBC

officers were also asked: whether the decision making timeframe of their particular topic was sufficient for placement within the forum; to transform the topics into questions for the forum; and to forward all relevant electronic documentation for the forum. It took from 23/08/05 to 29/09/05 to get five GBC topics approved, transformed into questions, and their relevant documentation placed within the forum. Table 5.3 provides details of the six topics chosen – please see appendix B for complete questions.

Table 5.3

Topic Question

Guildford museum How can Guildford Borough Council

develop an improved Museum Service?

Open space Please use this subtopic to discuss other

local government issues which are important to you.

New housing development Where is the best location for new housing in Guildford?

Smoke free Guildford Do you expect licensees of pubs and

clubs to take steps to control tobacco smoke before the introduction of the proposed national controls?

Friary extension: community space allocation

Is this an appropriate use for the community space, and what services should be included?

Sustainable development Where should development be located to

reduce its impact on the environment? Robson (1993) points out that access negotiation can take time, and such negotiations are a continuing process rather than a single event. This particularly holds with implementing E-Democracy with local government. As can be seen from the chronological order of events above it takes quite a lot of time and effort to reassure a local government about implementing a local political online forum on their website.