[wdmmg-discuss] Fwd: An idea for an app on public input on the deficit

[Rufus Pollock]

Here's a really interesting idea (with lots of detail) from Stuart
Bradshaw for doing a public input app around addressing the deficit.

Thoughts?

Rufus

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stuart Bradshaw
Date: 22 June 2010 18:41
Subject: An idea...
To: ...


Hi

I have an idea that I hope will be interesting to you.  I have copied
both of your organisations on the same email as I wondered if there
might be value in you working together (since WDMMG has the financial
knowhow and base data / app, and MySociety has plenty of experience
with this type of site plus clearly knows how to get politicians to
pay attention to what they are saying).  My idea is as follows...

- As you will no doubt be aware, there are already a number of
calculators out there that essentially ask "What would YOU do to
resolve the deficit?", with the two most notable I have seen being
WDMMG and BBC News

- As you are also probably aware, the Coalition has stated that over
the summer it intends to consult widely with the public on how the
major spending cuts should be implemented, ahead of the Spending
Review settlements in September / October

- The tricky part to this is that I don't think anyone has figured out
*how* they intend to canvass the views of so many people so quickly,
or how they are going to make people well-informed enough to give a
meaningful opinion

- So, what about adapting the online calculator concept slightly to do
this?  There are about 60 million people in the UK, so as a
start-point we could say that on average, HMG needs to save one
60-millionth of the overall deficit, per individual (which comes to a
bit over £1,000 each I believe) - you can probably refine that a bit
based on an individual's income etc (so the rich lose out more than
the poor)

- So, users could log onto a site, tell it some stuff about their
household (how many people, how old are they, which industry sectors
do they work in, what do they get paid, do they have kids, do they
drink / smoke / own a car / travel a lot etc, whatever else) and then
the site could allow them to choose how they would cover their 'share'
of the deficit, based on tax rises, spending cuts and whatever else

- As they move the sliders, checkboxes etc, the site tells them about
possible consequences of their choices, tailored where possible based
on the info they have given - e.g. "cutting the defence budget might
make oil prices go up, and you do a lot of driving so that could be
bad for you"

- The key point is that it starts from the value that you're going to
lose out on and works backwards to find the least painful way for you
of doing so - so this isn't about just trying to set it to minimise
the loss for yourself

- What's in it for citizens?

All the calculators I have seen so far talk in generic terms about the
whole UK economy - this would be specific to an individual.
Personally is very hard for me to get my head around impacts on the
economy as a whole but much easier for me to understand (and, frankly,
care about) the impact on my own family.  And not only can it deal in
hypothetical situations based on choices that users select - it can
also remember their details for later, and give them tailored info on
the consequences of big decisions made by HMG as and when they emerge
- e.g. "HMT has just announced a x% decrease in xxx benefit, which
means your family will have £y less per month".  When the Spending
Review itself is published, each site user can get a personalised
email telling them how they might be impacted and where it differs the
most from what they wanted to see.  Obviously it's still a simplified
rough-and-ready model and all numbers would be indicative (and
caveated as such), but it could still bring a very dry financial topic
to life for people in a very personal way.  Plus, users will know that
HMG will be aware of their preferences and will try to take them into
account (see below).

- What's in it for Government?

This is the clever bit (I like to think)... the site could (with
users' permission of course) allow HMG to see on aggregate what
combinations of options have been selected by different categories of
users, giving them the consultation data that they need in terms of
how the public wishes them to tackle the deficit.  So, as a simplistic
example, HMG might decide to raise taxes for families with young
children but to lower support instead for pensioners because that's
what they indicated they prefer.  Clearly there are other ways to
collect this kind of information from the public - but to do it this
quickly would require paying market research organisations a lot of
money and clearly that's not an attractive thing to do right now.  Not
only can ministers and treasury officials look at what people have
said they prefer, but they can also "try out" different options,
seeing directly what kind of impact each would have on individual
people and getting some objective evidence that they are hurting the
rich more than the poor etc.  Plus, individual MPs can get a sense of
what their constituents want them to lobby for and be seen to respond
to this.

- What do you need to do?

If you want to do something like this then you need to move fast: all
government departments have to make their SR bids by mid July ready
for a consultation period in late July and through August / possibly
part of September.  You would therefore need your site ready for
people to use by mid July.  However - I think you are most of the way
there based on what is already in the WDMMG calculator, you just need
to present the info slightly differently and set up the mechanism to
share the data with ministers (and this second part doesn't actually
have to be ready for mid July, as long as the public-facing part is
good to go).  Presumably you'll need to check quite early on that CO /
HMT doesn't already have plans for how to run this consultation (I can
help there - I have contacts in both organisations that I can talk to
if I know you're interested in developing this).  In order to get wide
coverage quickly, I would suggest contacting the BBC News website -
your calculator is better than theirs and it would save them the
trouble of making their own.  I would also suggest you consider
getting it linked on Directgov and businesslink.gov.uk (I have
contacts at both if you wanted to approach them) plus obviously
data.gov.uk.  Once you have this tool, it would presumably be
something you could update and roll out again for every subsequent
Budget etc as well, so it's time well spent.

I hope this is of some help - feel free to use or ignore as you see
fit but I wanted to share it.  I think the whole data.gov.uk /
transparency concept is a very brave one for government to be pursuing
and I want to see it succeed as more than just a passing fad - I think
it's now just waiting for an app with wide relevance to the whole UK
population to really make it take off, perhaps this or something like
it could do so.  If I can be of any help or if you have any questions
then let me know.

Thanks

Stuart