Tackling inequality with good quality consultation
The challenge
Sheffield is a highly diverse city, something in which it takes great pride. It remains a popular destination for immigrants and international students and they recognise the importance of involving citizens to being a trustworthy and accountable organisation - in fact, actively listening to their citizens is a key component in their corporate plan.
Sheffield City Council also understand that sometimes it’s hard to get the views of underrepresented demographics, so they’ve taken action to combat this. They’ve set up ‘Equality Hubs’: regular meetings for minorities to meet and discuss issues in their community, facilitated by the Council.
So when it came to choosing an online consultation platform, they knew they needed a tool that would be in line with their values of inclusion, accessibility and equality. Citizen Space was the best choice.
The approach
Since its inception, Citizen Space has had these principles at its heart. It’s fully equipped to enable anybody to participate in a consultation, whatever their demographic. Its simple, easy-read interface and fully responsive design mean that respondents aren’t blocked from having their say by not having access to a computer: it can be used on mobile, desktop and everything in between. It has a ‘kiosk mode’ that enables administrators to take their consultations directly to the public, meaning that even if someone has no access to any internet-connected device they can still have their say online.
It’s also fully WCAG 2.0 compliant, meaning that it conforms to international accessibility standards. It’s optimised for use with screen readers, speech recognition software, and other accessibility tools.
The results
Sheffield is a highly diverse city, something in which it takes great pride. It remains a popular destination for immigrants and international students, and these numbers are only increasing.
However, with diversity inevitably come certain levels of inequality. Sheffield City Council is determined to combat this, and puts ideologies of inclusivity and equality at the heart of its policies and decisions. One of the ways it hopes to increase equality city-wide is by making sure residents can share their views and get their voices heard.
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.