Process and planning

From an initial contact meeting, the Wheel made it clear that it had little resources of its own to expend on the proposed e-consultation.

Following a number of meetings between the research team and the Wheel, a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ was drawn up and agreed upon by the Wheel and the research team. This included an agreement on confidentiality, an agreed embargo on the release of information, data protection and costs. In addition, the following was agreed that the E-Consultation Research Project would provide: · Expertise in identifying appropriate technology for the consultation · Setting up a consultation website, including discussion forums that can be accessed online, by e-mail, mobile phone and ‘land-line’ · Technical support during the consultation · Training to Wheel personnel on running and maintaining an e-consultation In return, the researchers were given the opportunity to conduct surveys with consultation participants before and after the e-consultation trial. In addition, researchers were able to conduct in-depth interviews with Wheel personnel, again before and after the e-consultation. By doing this, it was possible to discern whether consulters/consultees expectations for etechnology and quality of participation had been met in the course of the trial. The idea of eliciting experiences or ‘stories’ from participants was identified as a key way of gaining information. The experiences and views of Irish people about active citizenship would enrich any report The Wheel submitted to the task force, as it could be grounded in people’s own understanding of active citizenship, rather than what the task force members or David Putnam thinks active citizenship might be. The staff at The Wheel did not have time to moderate a discussion forum, so it was decided between the research team and the Wheel to develop a site specifically to collect these stories, but not discuss them. The Wheel would not engage directly with the views posted during the course of the e-consultation, but would use the data gathered to inform a future submission to the Task Force. The research team were keen to point out that a feedback mechanism must be incorporated into the process so that participants would be informed of overall progress with the Task Force, but also, and critically, that participants would be able to evaluate whether or not their own submissions were seriously considered by the Wheel in its final submission. Lastly, the research team strongly emphasized the importance of publicising the e-consultation prior to its launch. The problem of ‘recruiting’ participants to engage in consultation is a central issue with many processes. To this end, the Wheel outlined a strategy including e-mailing lists, postcards, and if necessary phoning members in order to encourage them to participate.