TRANSCRIPT

The Green Alliance Podcast | Why inclusive policy matters: an interview with Stephen Frost, IPPR

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

policy, public engagement, work, policymaking, public, juries, sector, uk, polling, involve, organisation, funders, transport, space, bit, citizens, climate, engaging, challenge, community

SPEAKERS

Stephen Frost, Sophie O’Connell

 

Sophie O’Connell 

Welcome to the Green Alliance podcast. We’re the charity and think tank that is all about achieving ambitious leadership for the environment. I’m Sophie O’Connell, policy advisor at Green Alliance. In this episode, I chat Stephen Frost from the think tank Institute for Public Policy Research, where we talk about all the changes that think tanks and NGOs can make to increase the amount of public engagement they do around their policies. So welcome Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.

Stephen Frost 

Thanks for having me.

Sophie O’Connell 

So first of all, it’d be good to just get an intro to you and IPPR’s work and your role, and maybe a bit about the Fair Transition Unit as well. So Green Alliance are looking at this work initially through our transport projects, because it’s a big piece of work that we’ve been running for a few years now. And it’s obviously an area of policy that has such a direct and immediate impact on everyday people. So it makes sense that you’re working on both of those in conjunction . Would you be able to explain what engagement you’ve done in the Fair Transition Unit? How have you engaged the public?

Stephen Frost 

So Institute for Public Policy Research. IPPR, for short, is an independent charity and think tank that covers a broad spectrum of public policy. But everything is focused on working towards a fairer, greener and more prosperous society. Within that I sit within the Fair Transition Unit, which is focused on accelerating environmental action in a way that is aligned with securing a fairer society and improving people’s quality of life. Across our team, we’ve got people who look at green industrial strategy, the future of work, how we heat our homes, everything you can think of around what might be needed for that transition. My focus is on two things. One of them is transport with an emphasis on kind of how people travel within the UK. And the second is on engaging the public in policymaking. I do a lot of that on climate. But I also help the rest of the Institute in thinking about how they might do that effectively on policy areas like levelling up or health or anything else, that we’re engaging people on. Yeah we’ve done a huge range of different types of engagement within our research, and this encompasses everything from all singing, all dancing, very time consuming citizens juries where we’ve recruited representative samples of the public through our sortition process, working with partners to do that well, through to focus groups, small scale workshops, and even I include polling within our understanding of what we mean by public engagement, anything that helps us to get out there and hear from the public on different policy areas, different things, themes that we’re we’re working on. The fair transition unit comes out of IPPR’s cross party, Environmental Justice Commission, and that saw us do four citizens juries across the UK, during late 2020, early 2021. Those citizens juries were looking at how to fairly take action on climate and nature crisis with local communities and really get that sense of what it meant to people living in Scotland, in Wales in different parts of England, on how they were interpreting the challenge, what they thought actually needs to happen across kind of all different sectors. They’d been planned to be delivered in person in all of those different parts of the UK. And we ended up running them entirely online, as we were impacted by the pandemic, people in those communities were impacted, too. And they, as I hinted, kind of talking about the different kind of work we’ve done, they were huge operations that took far more staff time than we could possibly have imagined in preparing for them and running them and doing justice to what we heard from the communities once we had run them as well. We had lots of partners involved in the planning of them, and also in giving evidence to the group. So we don’t just take our own ideas to the people we’re working with, but also involve others. And also probably crucially, had funders bought in to that vision of how research should be delivered and what was required to really put forward a big vision for the future of the UK in relation to nature and climate crisis. And their commitment is kind of how we managed to ride out the kind of impact of the pandemic and also do quite so much work. We haven’t done anything quite so dramatic since then. We’re kind of thinking 2020/21 – a lot more of our work has been much more targeted on specific demographics, specific places within the UK. So for a programme of work looking at levelling up, which dealt a little bit with climate a little bit with transport policy, we went to different parts of the UK, went to Stoke on Trent, we went to Redcar and went down to Hastings to hear what people said about their local community, what they saw the challenges as, their hopes for the future, and kind of where they wanted to see government policy prioritise, kind of changing their local area. So creating databases, which were done in kind of in more traditional kind of market research ways, a bit more power given to participants, but the approach taking the amount of time required, much more light touch. And we’ve done similar, focused explicitly on people living on low incomes in urban areas, looking at air quality policy and looking at how to fairly reduce car use in Scottish cities. In all of those spaces we have, we have some kind of similar things that come across from the citizens juries about what it is to create a space that is accessible to as many people as possible, welcoming where people feel they’re able to understand and follow the arguments. But we actually do a vast range of different things in them. So in some cases, we’re taking findings that we already have from literature review, or stakeholder interviews, from qualitative research, or from polling from surveys, and putting them back to people and creating the space where they can help us interpret those findings and giving a little bit of the power that we have as researchers to then put that forward as a set of recommendations. In others, we start from scratch, and we go, here’s a blank bit of paper that says, what do you care about? And then we develop from there policies, challenges, all of the other things that that might come from that.

Sophie O’Connell 

And obviously, it’s really like you said, it’s not a small undertaking to do a citizen’s jury at all. So what were the barriers that you overcame to do that engagement? Obviously, you’ve said it’s really time consuming and costly for an organisation. But was there anything that you did previously, to make sure that you were doing that in the most effective way?

Stephen Frost 

Yes there’s almost a wide range of things that kind of go into it. I think one of the most important things kind of up front, there is having enough money to do it well, I think is one of the barriers to overcome. So the buy-in of multiple stakeholders, multiple funders, all of those things, building the case for the approach was a key part of doing that bit well. And I was lucky enough to come along slightly after that fundraising happened to deliver the citizens juries. I think the other key part that you’re doing in preparation for this is having a really clear view of what you are going to be taking to that jury as a question, why is it important that you’re going to involve them, what are they going to be able to tell you you don’t already know, how much power are you willing to give them over the conclusions you’re reached, what format will that conclusion come in? All of that thinking has to be done before you’ve written the letter asking people to come along and be involved in that work. And then coming out of that, that kind of other barriers around kind of accessible language about what timings are you going to do for different events, all of those things, do you have enough money in the budget to properly provide incentives or tech support, other things like that are all part of making those processes as accessible as possible. And you have to have done that upfront, because you can be flexible and you should be on the day, and adapt around what people in the room are saying and give them a bit of power over the space. But all of the things that they should take for granted are the tech’s going to work and you value their participation and you know what you’re going to do with it?

Sophie O’Connell 

It’s a massive undertaking, I guess. IPPR calls for the public to be involved in political decisions kind of throughout the work. So was that something that underpinned you wanting to get people involved in your policymaking process? And is that why it’s so important for IPPR to involve people?

Stephen Frost 

Yes, I think in short it’s absolutely right. It is a bit chicken and egg, like we already believed, and would point to evidence that points to that involving the public in policymaking is absolutely crucial for a range of reasons, and have had a long history of doing bits of that as IPPR were kind of some of the first people who piloted citizens juries within the UK, all of that was kind of there as history so we already believed in this. And therefore we’re calling for it. I think partly through doing it, we became more committed to the process and saw the value of it, and also saw that in order to be credibly arguing the case for the policies that we want to see, we do have to be able to represent the public effectively and actually go out and talk to them about it as well. Although I don’t think that we should never pretend like we are the government like we don’t. The people who are accountable for public engagement in net zero within the UK, are the UK Government. The net zero strategies that we have-  transport, decarbonisation plan – all of those things should embed public involvement and engagement. And we can’t replace that through our work. But we are part of the picture. And we should be trying to do what we can to ensure that the public will see the policies that are put forward as being effective and fair. And that’s been rooted in what we’ve done since the EJC – The Environmental Justice Commission.

Sophie O’Connell 

You said just at the start that you see polling as including the public sphere in your policymaking as well. And we include polling and sometimes advisory groups of other organisations to try and format policy work. But I guess the problem with polling is it’s easy for people to answer a question of if there’s more buses than I’ll take the bus more and it’s very like hypothetical, it doesn’t necessarily reflect what would happen in practice. Have you found that some of the findings from the citizen’s juries have been easily enacted? Or have there been other barriers and things that you couldn’t overcome through doing that engagement?

Stephen Frost 

Really good question. I would say that it definitely findings from our citizens juries and deliberative workshops, even very small scale conversations with the public, where you quickly find out that the support that you see when you do public polling is not necessarily there when you actually talk to people on the ground. And I think one of the examples that I’d say for that, just because it’s recent and relevant in Scottish transport policy, and hopefully one day in the UK is around pavement parking. And we’ve seen Edinburgh move to be the first city to do that in the new year. And that’s fantastic. There is a huge public support for pavement parking ban went when we ran it in polls. What we found when we talk to people in a deliberative workshop, and people who don’t own cars, is actually they’re very quick to see the tangible practical challenges that might come for people who live in tenements, in spaces where there is not that many places to park, and you get that opportunity to get into the weeds of what this actually means in people’s lives. And wherever they think the trade off is worthwhile. That the inconvenience of this group of people over here, who are gonna have to park in different places is worth trading for more space for people in wheelchairs, with buggies or kind of accessibility needs to use the pavement? And ultimately, answer is yes. But you end up going down the what else could you do or need to do in order to ensure that this is kind of at the point where it’s actually enacted, seen to be fair, and kind of developed in the right way? So I think you get both the yes, here is a very clear policy that is going to be supported by the public when it needs to be but also you get into the detail of what is actually going to need to happen to do this well. So a bit of both in your question around, it tells you where it’s going to be hard to enact something that you think is otherwise straightforward. It gives you some of the complexity. In the reverse, you also get people who you start off talking to them about an aspect of planning policy or an aspect of transport policy, because we are trained to think often in the sectoral terms, and it was specific government departments, specific ministers in mind, who were trying to influence with our policy asks, and that means absolutely nothing to someone on the ground, who is just looking around their community and seeing the local school, the local shops that had kind of local streets and seeing kind of houses being cut down to make way for new homes, like those kinds of things that are what they experience of policy, cutting across all sectors and all departments.

Sophie O’Connell 

Sometimes a yes or no or multiple choice answer completely misses out on all the nuances of having an actual conversation and seeing the real impact that a policy can have on multiple factors in some of these lives.

Stephen Frost 

That’s absolutely right. And you see that with a lot of the polling that we do within the sector will be representative of the UK, when you start digging down to the different experiences you might have in London around that policy, or Manchester or I’m in Bristol, and then you get out to the suburbs of those cities, or you get beyond the suburbs of those cities to rural areas, particularly on transport policy, when you’re thinking about climate policies that might impact people’s ability to drive or to drive the car they currently have that that really needs exploring and what that means. And you need to understand that local context in great detail. And although a lot of our work does end up quite targeted at Westminster policymaking because they create the environment for everyone else to work in. So much of this can be done at local level and by local NGOs, local policy influencers all those kind of things as well.

Sophie O’Connell 

Yeah, I guess that’s the value of devolution of local governments and representatives they know best for their local community. Going back to the participation question. So what are the changes that you think are needed within the sector? So public participation to be really valued? So you spoke previously about you had a collection of different funders for your citizens juries. Are there other things that need to change in the sector so that this kind of becomes a norm? Although, I guess we just did say before we hit record, that it isn’t necessary that every organisation or every organisation isn’t well placed to speak directly to the public, other sector, what are the changes that are needed?

Stephen Frost 

So there’s probably a range of things. I think one of the things I find myself lucky on is I generally find myself in conversations with people in the sector who do really value the idea of public participation and understand kind of why it could have benefits either within their policymaking or in their influencing advocacy strategies and that side of their work. I would say on kind of the ensuring we have really good quality policies being put forward by people working in this space. There is definitely campaigners and researchers who are really very clear that they have the answer already. And they are the experts on their issue. And where that is the starting point for public participation, I think there’s a real challenge like public participation calls for us to be committed to and better at listening to people. And really giving over that bit of power to the public in shaping our work. It is not about convincing people of the position you’ve already reached and winning support for the policy that you’ve been promoting for the last two decades, like, however good that policy is. And definitely, within transport, there’s fantastic policies that have been around for a very long time, but are not being delivered. And they’re not receiving public and national kind of government support. Public participation is a way of bringing that challenge to the table and working on it together. And calls for us to value lots of different kinds of knowledge differently. It’s not just about statistics, not about kind of evidence review, and what we might find from the traditional kinds of policy analysis that we might be most comfortable with, or the kind of stakeholder research that we would normally do. It’s about kind of valuing people’s lived experience of their communities and the challenges that they face in their life and their ideas of what can work and all those things as well. And I think in that question of what changes need to be made as well is that we do have a habit of working on our own within the sector and disappearing into our own research project bubbles left, right and centre. And that can sometimes make good quality public engagement feel completely unaffordable, and therefore something we don’t even want to try, we don’t make the steps towards it, because it just feels like it’s too complicated, we don’t know and it’s too unaffordable. But in reality, there are so many ways that you can do this affordably, that you can partner with community groups and piggyback on other initiatives. So you don’t need to be in the organisation who is leading the way, you need to kind of enter into those conversations, honestly, and kind of engage others kind of in that space as well. And it’s been great to see where people have done that really well. I’ve used the Environmental Justice Commission as an example of kind of multiple funders and stakeholders coming together and getting behind the vision. But also really inspiring to see WWF RSPB and National Trust come together to convene the People’s Assembly for nature, I think that is far more cost effective, and efficient. And then all three of those trying to do something similar on their own. I would also argue it gives it far more credibility as an exercise as well, far more powerful in the advocacy. So getting used to looking up and around and engaging with others in the sector with similar goals is important. And I think finally there is that question of what needs to change in the sector? Well, funders need to properly value public engagement, and be willing to offer enough money to charities & researchers working in this space to do public engagement well, and that’s no small thing for some trusting grants that kind of all the providers. I would also say that I know that I would be really happy to see and indeed have been beneficiaries of this within our work – funders who see themselves as brokers and kind of people who can encourage partnership working around good quality community engagement, if they’re looking at a roster of far too many proposals coming to them for a decision. And they can see that 10 of them are going to, are all saying they want to do public engagement and involvement around why we saw such a push back to net zero in Uxbridge, then maybe encourage those charity organisations to have a conversation and work out how to work together well around that issue and use all of our resources to to engage and involve the public in a meaningful conversation there.

Sophie O’Connell 

Yeah, I guess it’s about collaboration, isn’t it? Because all different think tanks and NGOs are coming at it from a slightly different framing or perspective, but when they put their resources together, then they can do so really impactful and bring people in,

Stephen Frost 

Use each other’s skills well, in a kind of the way that Green Alliance might take your approach to engaging involving the public, I think going to those community groups, going to organisations who are already doing this, and using those spaces to test ideas from the public is fine. I think, ultimately, part of what I care about in this is making sure that the policies we’re arguing for are actually going to benefit the people we claim they’re going to work for. And I don’t think we do that unless we actually understand the challenges they’re facing, the opportunities they might see and their own hopes for what they want in their life.

Sophie O’Connell 

Yeah definitely. And I think it’s so important to bring people along with the transition. We’ve seen what happens when policies can get derailed in the media, and the damage that can do to a net zero or environmental agenda. And ultimately, that’s just having a negative impact on the public who are facing the brunt of the impacts of climate change.

Stephen Frost 

Absolutely.

Sophie O’Connell 

But I liked what you said earlier about kind of funding proposals because I think we’re definitely guilty as a sector of writing a funding proposal, already having preempted what we think the conclusion in some way, kind of wanting to do the research to prove that. But I think just generally being a bit more open minded and wanting to explore an area and not having a preconceived idea of what the conclusions will be, is a good starting point. But it’s hard to unpack that.

Stephen Frost 

It’s definitely challenging. I would say one of the starting points that we have used within our work is climate change is not up for debate within the deliberative work that we do, we take as read that we do need to respond urgently. How we do that well, is the question and the benefits, it can bring, all of those things. So I think being really clear on those lines is important that we do sometimes know the answer. Sometimes we don’t need we don’t need public participation to tell us that climate change is happening all around us, and we see it play out in our headlines. So knowing where are you actually going to add to the evidence based on this. And actually, what is up for debate, I think is important.

Sophie O’Connell 

Ultimately we’re trying to do ourselves out of a job by solving the problem. But it seems a little bit far off at the moment. Just to try and wrap up this conversation, I know we can talk about it all day, but are there key three takeaways that you’d like listeners to take away with them from the conversation? You’ve said a lot of really insightful points, but it’d be good to try and just distill that

Stephen Frost 

Three things from me would be one that public engagement isn’t optional. Two, that if you’re doing it right, then it probably is making you uncomfortable. And I think the third is that public engagement involvement is by far the most inspiring, most fun part of my job, I can unpack those three things a little bit more. If we want a rapid transition to net zero, there is absolutely no way of getting there that doesn’t involve the public in changing their behaviours, but also in shaping those policies. And we have seen the IPCC kind of come behind that conclusion in its most recent kind of advice for governments. And, as I’ve said before, that the government’s ultimately accountable for ensuring that we do that within the UK, we shouldn’t take on the full burden of public engagement and involvement, but we should ensure that we are playing our part and that we within the policies that we are calling for have done that bit of engagement in the public. The second, the kind of idea that if you’re doing it right, that this should be making you uncomfortable, it’s about power. And if you are doing public engagement and involvement in the way that we should be through climate policymaking, then you are giving a bit of the power that you normally have, as a researcher, as an organisation, as a board of trustees, whoever it might be within the charity sector or NGO, you’re giving a bit of that power to the public to shape their work. And that can be a challenge. And I know that there’ll be some people who won’t welcome that. I think they’ll find it uncomfortable, however much they might believe in the values of the work, actually being told that the public don’t think that’s a good policy is going to be hard for some to hear. And I think that that third one of for me, and particularly when I’m surrounded by the kinds of headlines that we’re used to in climate policymaking over the last few years that things are really hard, and every battle is hard won, actually getting in the room with a group of people who come from a wide range of walks of life, different backgrounds, all of those kind of things. And they’re all working together to solve that common challenge and listening to each other’s experience and listening to the evidence and really thinking about what kind of future they want for themselves, their grandchildren, all of those things – that keeps me motivated and keeps me energised and can act as a refresher to a whole policy team, I think as well to feel that what you are working on, actually has that connection down to people’s lives.

Sophie O’Connell 

Yeah well, I think that’s a really nice note to end on, looking at the realistic impact. And sometimes it’s good to get out of the policy bubble and just speak to normal people and say, are we doing the right thing?

Stephen Frost 

It’s as simple as that.

Sophie O’Connell 

Thanks so much, Steven, it’s great to speak to you.

Stephen Frost 

Thank you.

Sophie O’Connell 

Thanks for listening to this Green Alliance podcast. Keep checking in as we continue to bring you specialist interviews and highlights from our events here on your podcast feed. You can subscribe to the green lights podcast on your favourite podcast app, and can follow us @greenallianceuk on Twitter and Instagram. And the Green Alliance on LinkedIn. See you next time.