Reaching dispersed communities with Dialogue
The challenge
Forestry Commission are Britain's largest land manager, looking after nearly a million hectares of land including some of Britain's best loved and most spectacular landscapes.
Every year, 40 million people visit woodland managed by Forestry Commission, and almost 5 million tons of wood are harvested. More than half of Britain's population live within six miles of a Forestry Commission wood or forest.
With more than 1,500 forests and woods to care for, Forestry Commission need to work with landowners, businesses and local communities to make the most of woods and forests.
Our approach
Forestry Commission's Dialogue provides an ideal location for the organisation's varied stakeholders to discuss and rate each other's ideas.
Geographically-dispersed teams across Britain use the tool to engage woodland users on a wide range of issues, from mountain bike access to building management.
Critical for Forestry Commission is that Dialogue is accessible and easy to use. As Richard Tatnall, Digital Communications Officer at Forestry Commission explains, "not all our audiences are that internet savvy so having a platform like this which is geared towards being so user-friendly is really important."
The results
Before adopting Dialogue, Forestry Commission would consult via email, which is unstructured and doesn't promote discussion or deliberation. For significant issues Forestry Commission would also run events, or speak to people 'in the field', which can be effective, but is time-consuming and costly, especially when covering large geographical areas.
Consulting online lowers costs for Forestry Commission, whilst reaching more people, and providing a better public discussion about woodland and forest issues.
Dialogue has played an essential role in our decision making, everything from how we manage visitor facilities at local sites to organisational restructuring.
Delib is a govtech leader specialising in consultation and engagement, trusted by over 600 government organisations worldwide, including major planning projects. Since 2004, we've been building secure, accessible digital platforms to make participation simpler, fairer, and more inclusive. Our flagship product, Citizen Space, was built in collaboration with the UK government and has supported more than 11 million responses across over 110,000 democratic activities.