Audience Engagement: Public consultation by the BBC Trust Appendix B: Responses from Audience Councils and the Central Religious Advisory Committee

1. Response from Audience Councils 1.1 Audience Council England

The Audience Council England (ACE) welcomes the promise made by the Trust in the Audience Engagement Protocol to reaching out to all the groups which make up the audience. The Council notes the setting out of the principles and methods of engagement which together establish a comprehensive approach to seeking out the widest possible range of audience views, and the commitment to annual assessment to allow for further development. This submission updates the original response from the Council and its 12 supporting Regional Audience Councils (RACs) made in April this year to the pre-consultation draft. Since that date, the Council has agreed its own strategy for audience engagement based on the Trust’s proposed practice. The strategy is based on a pragmatic approach which takes into account the constraints on members’ time and their degree of enthusiasm for interacting more widely with local communities, as well as the accessibility of events to people who may not be closely engaged with the BBC. As a result Council members are now developing a schedule of activity with their regional councils, and on occasion, a uniform approach across all 12. This is seen as complementing the Trust’s programme of audience engagement and helping inform the Trust of audience views beyond those of the immediate council and members’ local networks. Seven audience engagement events have already taken place in England with a further 16 planned for the remainder of the year. The Council appreciates the commitment of its regional councils in undertaking such activity; it recognises too the potential this has in providing qualitative audience feedback to its own deliberations as much as to the Trust, as part of a suite of methods aimed at achieving a greater understanding of audiences. The Council welcomes also the greater clarity in the Protocol on the purpose of audience engagement and the importance of reporting on the outcomes, two points which emerged strongly from the regional council discussions as key to the effectiveness of their own activity. A third point which the Council would like to highlight is the value of face-to-face interaction with audience members. While paper-based consultations and public surveys will always have a place in the Trust’s panoply of audience research, members feel strongly that it is only in those direct interactions that the true strength of feeling can be gauged and with it, the

distinctiveness of the best of BBC services which connect at many levels including the emotional. The Council feels that the RACs have an important contribution to make here which is not expressly recognised within the Protocol, in extending the number of opportunities for wider engagement with the Trust, its aims and responsibilities, in a timely and cost-effective manner. The Council notes also the potential of the Local Audience Forums which are currently defined as management events focused on local BBC services, but which again offer opportunities to reach further into audience groups which rely highly on the BBC, and into geographical locations where the BBC has low profile and low audience appreciation. Might not these be used to assist and inform the Trust in its promise to seek out and listen to the views of the public? This point raises a final question which the Council has identified as a result of the events hosted and attended by the RACs so far this year, and that is the setting of the boundary between accountability events delivered as part of the Trust’s remit, and opinion former events held by the BBC in each of the 12 regions in England. The majority of the latter are at present described as management events and tend to focus on specific BBC services. Audience Council England members have experienced both types of event and from an audience perspective, have derived value from both in terms of gathering wider audience views and at the same time raising awareness of the Trust and the Audience Councils. The one distinction appears to be that opinion former events are not formally reported on and generally have no defined outcomes. However ACE notes that they do meet the other five of the six principles of engagement as well as the principles of consultation (see Annex) and as such might form part of the Audience Councils’ and the Trust’s menu of public engagement methods, without any significant increase in funding or effort. What would be essential would be a clear positioning and labelling of the content of such events, with a visible demarcation between the governance and accountability aims and those of management.

1.2 Audience Council Northern Ireland

Submission to BBC Trust Audience Engagement Protocol Consultation A. Introduction The Audience Council for Northern Ireland is committed to consulting with local audiences to ensure that their views are taken into account in BBC Trust decisions. Its programme of audience engagement and consultation enables the Council to identify issues of concern and interest to local audiences, and informs its assessment of BBC performance against its Public Purposes. This submission to the BBC Trust’s consultation on its Audience Engagement Protocol is informed by the Council’s programme of consultation with audiences throughout the year. In addition, a number of activities have been undertaken specifically to understand how audiences in Northern Ireland wish to engage with the BBC Trust :

1. BBC Blast : On 28 June the Audience Council ran a consultation with young people aged 13 – 19 at the BBC Blast Festival. Up to 50 young people provided their views via a questionnaire and recorded comments to camera. Feedback was sought on a range of themes, including teenagers’ views on how they would like to contribute to the work of the Trust and Audience Council.

2. Representative organisations : A number of representative

organisations were consulted about how the Trust and Audience Council might best engage with their memberships. They included :

• Age Concern • Community Arts Forum • Disability Action • Educational Guidance Service for Adults • Engage with Age • Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities • Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action • Northern Ireland Youth Forum • Queen’s University Students’ Union • Youthnet Northern Ireland

3. Radio Interview : The National Trustee for Northern Ireland, Rotha

Johnston, was interviewed on BBC Radio Ulster’s consumer programme, On Your Behalf. She explained the role of the BBC Trust and the Audience Council Northern Ireland, and how local audience priorities are brought to bear on Trust decisions. The audience was encouraged to share ideas of how they would like to be involved in BBC decision making through the Trust’s public consultation.

The Audience Council Northern Ireland would like to thank the organisations and individuals who contributed to this consultation. The Audience Council’s response to the Trust consultation is presented below in an Executive Summary. Further detail is provided under the consultation questions. B. Executive Summary The Audience Council derived the following main points and recommendations from its consultation on audience engagement :

• The Audience Council endorses the Trust’s intention to be ‘open to all’. It notes that this can be difficult to achieve and requires proactive efforts to encourage wide involvement and remove obstacles to participation.

• It is especially important to make provision to meet the support requirements of people with disabilities and particular needs (such as childcare), and to make these arrangements known at the outset.

• The Council also recognises that ‘the quiet voice’ can sometimes be underrepresented in certain types of consultation activities, such as public meetings, and wishes to find ways to encourage participation from sections of the audience who may be less vocal in some settings.

• The Council believes that there should be a wide range of consultation activities and that Audience Councils play a key role in facilitating these.

• It is important to communicate the role of the BBC Trust and Audience Council and to raise awareness of consultation activities. Council recommends that greater use is made of BBC platforms (such as television, local radio and bbc.co.uk) to raise awareness and to encourage participation in consultations. It also recommends greater use of interactive technology, where appropriate, to extend participation and enrich dialogue. A variety of communication channels should be used in order to be accessible to everyone.

• Audience engagement activities should have a clear focus and a format which is appropriate to the issue and to the participants.

• It is essential to be clear about the extent to which a consultation will influence decisions, and to feedback outcomes in a timely manner.

• Consultations should be open to all but also well targeted to avoid ‘consultation fatigue’ in some organisations. Documents should be clear, short and to the point and written in accessible language.

• Consultation events can help to build discussion in a way that paper based consultations do not.

• The Audience Council should work to build relationships with interest groups and representative organisations and work with them to involve their members in consultation activity. This is a practical and cost effective way for the Audience Council to engage with a wider range of people in an effective manner, rather than duplicating networks of contacts.

• The Council must also listen to individual audience members and understand the extent to which interest group views are representative of the wider audience.

• The Council also notes that there are specific challenges to be addressed to involve people who cannot be reached through representative tools and communications channels such as the internet.

• Trust research should be widely accessible. The Audience Council has a particular role to play in communicating research findings in a way that is relevant to the audience.

• The Council recognises the value placed on an open and independently audited recruitment process for membership to the Audience Council, and wide communication through television and radio trails. It notes the expectation that its membership should be representative of the community at large, and that it should engage widely to reflect and champion the diverse views of audiences in Northern Ireland.

• The Council noted that many members of the audience do not know how to make a complaint to the BBC, and it recommends that the complaints process is communicated more widely to the public and organisations. Council closely monitors complaints and comments about BBC Northern Ireland programmes and services to better understand audience views and concerns.

C. Detailed Submission The Audience Council’s submission to the BBC Trust is detailed below under the consultation questions: Q1. What do you think about the plans to be ‘open to all’ as outlined in the first section of this leaflet ? The Audience Council endorses the Trust intention to be ‘open to all’. It notes the emphasis which local organisations have placed on consulting with all sections of the audience rather than a common denominator. Organisations taking part in this consultation strongly supported the principle of open access but noted that this is difficult to achieve in practice. Particular efforts should be made to include sections of the audience which tend not to get involved in consultation activity, and which may be hard to reach through the usual channels. The Audience Council also notes that ‘the quiet voice’ can sometimes be underrepresented in certain types of consultation activities, such as public meetings. The Council wishes to find ways to encourage wider participation, recognising the contribution that these individuals could make in spite of being less vocal in certain settings. The Council believes that the BBC Trust, and the Audience Councils which advise the Trust, should make particular efforts to remove obstacles to involvement in consultation activities. This includes provision to meet access and support requirements for people with disabilities and particular needs. It is also necessary to address the needs and interests of groups that may be underrepresented in accountability activity, including people from black and ethnic minority communities. The Audience Council endorses the approach of using a wide range of consultation activities to encourage participation from different sections of the community. The

Council is embarking on a varied programme of activity in Northern Ireland to support this process and it will evaluate and adapt its programme to suit audience needs. The Council supports the commitment of the Trust to engage with audiences across the UK, particularly through the Audience Councils in each Nation. It recognises that its own programme of activity must reach different communities across Northern Ireland. Q2 What else, if anything, should the BBC Trust be doing to encourage licence fee payers to have their say ? The Audience Council endorses the range of consultation activities described in the Audience Engagement Protocol. It believes that there are opportunities to widen the range of activities further, particularly through the Audience Councils. For instance, the range of face to face activities available can extend beyond public meetings to suit a variety of audiences. Current examples include the Audience Council for Northern Ireland’s Schools Programme and its stakeholder events focussed on specific issues. The Trust and Audience Councils must be prepared to innovate as well as using traditional methods of audience engagement. The Audience Council supports the use of interactive technology as a means of engaging with audiences. It notes that for many sections of the audience the internet, 3G mobile and red button (for digital television) are natural channels of communication. Interactive technology can enrich communication by enabling wider participation and closer, more immediate dialogue. Care must be taken to use technology in a manner that is appropriate to the purposes of consultation. Council also notes that such forms of technology are not available or in use by all sections of the community and therefore recommends that formal consultations are made accessible through a range of communications channels. Feedback from a variety of organisations stressed the importance of letting people know that the Trust and Audience Council exist to champion the audience, and that they can express their views. Some groups suggested distribution of information through leaflets and other channels to raise the profile of the Trust and Audience Council and to outline ways to engage with them. This information should be available in a broad range of settings from the workplace to a variety of public places frequented by groups and individuals. The organisations consulted also emphasised the importance of communicating consultation activities effectively to target groups, as well as making them accessible to the audience generally. The consultation format and design should take account of the preferred means of communication for some groups. For instance, it was noted that the older community makes less use of the internet but could be reached effectively through television. Currently, local TV and radio trails are only used during Audience Council recruitment exercises. However, the Audience Council believes that greater use should be made of BBC broadcast media and bbc.co.uk to raise awareness of opportunities for the audience to have a say in how the BBC is run.

The Audience Council notes that many local organisations members of the public wish to understand the routes into the BBC when they have ad hoc comments and views to express. Many are not aware of the channels of communication, whether they would be directed to the relevant person, and what response they might expect. The view was also expressed that the bbc.co.uk website does not offer a coherent mechanism for feeding views back into the BBC. Council adds that the roles of BBC management and the BBC Trust must be clear and distinct when consulting with and soliciting feedback from audiences. Q3 : What would encourage you to participate in a consultation ? The Audience Council received the following feedback :

• Focus : Consultations should be relevant to the group concerned. There should be clear objectives and purpose to retain focus. Information should be provided in advance to ensure that there is due focus on the issue at hand, and to enable consultees to participate fully. It should be very clear from the outset what is being consulted on and what influence the consultees can have. It must also be clear what is out of scope and why.

• Accessibility and Inclusiveness: Engagement activities must be inclusive

and accessible to everyone. The needs of people with physical and learning disabilities and particular support requirements (such as childcare, personal assistance and transport in rural communities) must be given early consideration. It is especially important to let people know at the outset how their needs will be met and to encourage their participation.

• Communications : The audience needs to be aware of the consultation

through much wider communications using various media. For instance, various organisations suggested publicising events through their own newsletters, websites and events. Some methods of communication are particularly appropriate to specific groups, for instance immigrant groups make use of the library network and internet. Younger age groups can be reached through the schools network and youth sector, thus including people who fall outside the formal education network. There may also be opportunities to work within existing sectoral projects and initiatives. Leaflets and other short form communications about the role of the Trust and Audience Council would be regarded as helpful. The Audience Council suggests that there are opportunities in media literacy education to raise awareness of the role of the Trust and Audience Councils in representing the audience.

• Formats : It was noted that events and meetings can help to build

relationships and to develop discussions in a way that paper based consultations do not.

• The format for a consultation must be appropriate to the issue and to the

group participating, for instance using an established forum or venue. Most people prefer to engage in an active way as opposed to passive listening. It was suggested that workshops and focus groups are particularly effective

means of engaging with older people. Focus groups and conferences or residentials can also be effective in the youth sector. Young participants in BBC Blast would welcome engagement through schools, whereas their older counterparts also wanted freedom to participate beyond the curriculum. All ages were open to involvement through youth groups. Council notes that 42 % of young people in Northern Ireland are engaged in youth sector activities. Involving this sector enables young people outside formal education to participate.

• Some organisations noted that their members would be less inclined to attend

an Audience Council/ Trust event, but would be comfortable engaging with the issues in the context of their own forums and events. For instance, a number of groups run seminars and forums which encourage guest speakers and wide ranging discussions.

• Public meetings can be useful but tend to lose value if they become

unstructured or too general. Value is placed upon access to BBC management and an opportunity to hold senior managers to account and elicit responses, to complement the predominantly listening role of the Audience Council. Public meetings can attract people who are very active in the community and have an informed and engaged contribution. However, they can be less useful for people who are less comfortable with speaking in public.

• Consultation documents must be short and to the point with clear and specific

questions. They must be easy to comprehend by the range of people being consulted, who may have different levels of knowledge of the subject at issue and different abilities.

• Events should be stimulating and engaging. Some organisations noted the

value in involving known celebrities and presenters to encourage interest. There was also support for a social element to activities, with time for informal discussion. Others felt that incentives were important with competitions holding particular appeal for students and teenagers.

• The Audience Council consulted teenagers at the BBC Blast Festival in

Belfast in June 2007 with regard to BBC services and audience engagement. Responses indicated preferred ways for different age groups to engage with the BBC Trust.

Question 13-14yrs 15-17yrs 18-19yrs What is the best way for you to tell the Audience Council what you think about BBC services

12 responses

17 responses

1 response

- joining a media club/media event at my school

50% 41%

--

- taking part in a Youth Web Panel 17% 41% -- - saying what I think on an 33% 6% -

Audience Council website blog - through my local Youth Group -- 12% 100% - other? -- -- -

Feedback and Outcomes : One of the strongest messages from this consultation concerned the need for feedback on outcomes and decisions. There should be an emphasis on decision making and action to make a consultation worthwhile to those involved. Feedback was described by one organisation as a “ key affirmation of the Trust’s perceived value and / or intent to act upon public opinion.” Organisations would wish to report back outcomes to their memberships. • Council believes that there may be value in re-engaging with an audience after

an accountability event or consultation in order to communicate outcomes directly. This may take the form, for example, of a second meeting or a written communication.

Q4 : What would put you off participating ? The Audience Council received the following feedback :

• Many organisations warned of ‘consultation fatigue’, whereby staff are inundated with lengthy consultations of varying relevance. Participating organisations have to be selective in deciding which consultations to engage with so it is the responsibility of the consulting organisation to target its audience carefully, with due regard for the value of the time commitment.

• Lengthy consultation documents are off-putting. Unduly complicated documents which require considerable effort to understand are much less effective than documents expressed in plain English with a small number of clear questions. Documents need to be written from the perspective of the consultee and not the consulting organisation which may have a more in depth or specialist knowledge.

• People are likely to be put off when the value of the consultation is not clear (ie what decisions the consultation can influence) or if the value is not substantive enough for the effort required. The consultation must feel genuine with a sincere intent to act. People will be less inclined to participate if they feel they have little influence over the outcomes.

• People may be put off participating in an audience engagement event or consultation if they feel it is not geared towards people like them. Careful choice of forum and format as well as effective communication help.

• The timing of an event is critical and should be determined by the target audience. For instance, older people would not wish to meet very early or very late in the day, whilst others may be constrained by work and childcare commitments.

• People can be put off engaging if they can not be sure that their individual needs will be met. The consulting organisation needs to be proactive rather

than reactive in making arrangements to include people with disabilities and other needs as (such as childcare) and make that known from the outset. Access issues are also very important for some older people. Practical considerations such as transport costs may also be obstacles to involvement.

The Audience Council notes that BBC Trust public consultations on its website do not tend to attract significant volumes of responses from audience members in Northern Ireland. It suggests that more closely targeted consultations and audience engagement events encourage greater levels of participation. Q5 : How should the Trust communicate research findings to the public ? The Audience Council notes that responses to this question depended on the relevance of the research to the organisation or individual concerned. To achieve this it is necessary to understand each organisation’s particular interests. It was suggested that research relevant to a particular consultation should be distributed to everyone directly involved in that consultation along with any outcomes. Some organisations also underlined the importance of research being made publicly available and accessible as a matter of best practice. The Council supports the Trust’s commitment to transparency and openness in publishing research findings. The Audience Council believes that it has a particular role to play in understanding and, when appropriate, disseminating, research findings in a way that is relevant to the audience. This might helpfully involve demonstrating the role that the research has played in informing Council’s advice to the Trust and final outcomes. For instance, the Audience Council has taken a strong and informed interest in research on the Purpose Remits with regard to Northern Ireland audiences. This informs its work on understanding and monitoring how the Public Purposes are delivered in Northern Ireland. It has also informed very specific pieces of work such as Council’s consultation on Indigenous Minority Languages.

Q6 : What would be the most effective ways for the BBC Trust to work with interest groups to understand licence fee payers ? Feedback emphasised the importance of strong two way relationships between the Audience Council and representative organisations, with benefits for both parties. The organisations consulted were strongly of the view that the Trust and Audience Council should make use of these organisations’ knowledge of their sector and their communication networks to target consultations effectively. Many of these organisations offered websites, newsletters, e-zines and networks of contacts to help raise awareness of the Trust and Audience Council and to encourage engagement. Many pointed to their own events and forums as opportunities to discuss issues, and they welcomed Trust / Audience Council involvement where this was relevant to their organisation. It was also noted that contributions from membership organisations should not be too narrowly focussed or pigeon holed. People with disabilities, for instance, have a contribution to make across the BBC’s Purposes and Services and not just on issues of disability and access. The Audience Council was very appreciative of the willingness of the organisations concerned to advise and to help communicate relevant opportunities with their memberships. The Council believes this is a practical and effective way to engage with a wider range of people, and to invest time and resource directly into consultation rather than duplicating networks of contacts. The Audience Council also notes, however, that there are specific challenges to be addressed in involving people who cannot be reached through representative organisations and communications tools such as the internet. It is also important to listen to the views of individuals and to understand how representative interest group views are of the wider audience. Q7 : The BBC Trust will be consulting on its complaints framework later this year – we are not therefore asking in detail about the complaints system as part of this consultation. But if you have any initial observations please do let us have them here. The Audience Council noted that many organisations and individuals did not know how to make a complaint or where to find out how to do this. Some were aware that this information was available on the website but also pointed to large sections of the audience without ready access to the internet. Some people had been put off by first hand or reported experience of complaints being passed around in the system to no effect, which would put them off getting in touch with their views. The Audience Council closely monitors complaints about BBC Northern Ireland programmes and services. It receives monthly reports which detail the range of audience feedback (including complaints) and response times for complaints. The Council would like the complaints process to be more widely communicated to the general public and to organisations.

Q8: What can Audience Councils do to represent people like you ? The Audience Council noted that many organisations and audience members are interested in the role of Audience Councils, the recruitment process and the extent to which the Councils are representative of the audience generally. There was support for the Audience Council Northern Ireland’s use of the OCPA (Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments) process, involving independent assessors. There was a strong feeling that the Council membership should reflect a wide range of backgrounds and interests. Feedback has demonstrated some lack of awareness that Council members are not chosen on a constituency basis, but there is usually appreciation for the reasons for this once explained. There was also support for the use of more sophisticated television and radio trails to communicate the 2007 recruitment process to the Audience Council for Northern Ireland. Council notes that these raised awareness of the role and increased the volume and range of applicants. However, it also notes feedback that many people remain unaware of the Council role, what membership involves and opportunities to apply. The Audience Council intends to continue to explain its role and the appointments process more widely as part of its communication and audience engagement activity. It notes proactive work in the Trust Unit to assess the equality impact of the recruitment process (as well as audience engagement activities) and to encourage wider participation in the future from sections of the community that are underrepresented. Council places great emphasis on its remit to engage with audiences so that it can reflect and champion the views and concerns of licence fee payers across Northern Ireland. There was widespread support for opportunities for members of the audience to express their views to the Audience Council and feed into its advice to the BBC Trust. Q9: How might you want to get involved in the work of Audience Councils ? There was support for diverse membership of the Audience Councils reflecting different sections of the community, including young people, older people, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. There was also acknowledgement that through audience engagement activities the wider range of views could be represented by the Audience Council. Q10 : How can the BBC Trust give you confidence that it will take action ? This would be helpfully illustrated by the Trust / Audience Council providing real examples of how it has acted on feedback from audiences. Organisations and their members wanted evidence that their views had been given careful consideration and had informed decisions and outcomes. The Audience Council is mindful of its responsibility to advise the Trust on how well the BBC delivers its Public Purposes for audiences, and their issues and concerns

about the BBC. It welcomes feedback from the Trust to show how this advice has impacted on decisions, so that this can be fed back to the local audience. Q11 : What do you most want to hear about in terms of the Trust’s decisions and the BBC’s performance ? Feedback placed a high emphasis on outcomes and decisions as a result of issues raised through engagement with audiences. Q12 : And how should such things be reported to you ? Council noted the importance of timely communication of outcomes to organisations and individuals involved in consultations.

1.3 Audience Council Scotland 1. What do you think about the plans to be open to all as outlined in the first

section of this leaflet? The Audience Council Scotland fully endorses the BBC Trust’s plans to be “open to all”. For engagement with licence fee payers to be meaningful, interaction must take place with key audience networks such as communities, cultural and voluntary groups, demographic groupings, gender and disability groups and networks based on employment or leisure activity. Engagement should be direct and sustained with our audiences and relevant mechanisms and approaches should be used for different audience groups. It is important to be clear about the purpose and intended outcomes of any communication activity. 2. What else, if anything, should the BBC Trust be doing to encourage licence

fee payers to have their say? The Trust should recognise the support that the Audience Councils throughout the Nations and Regions can offer in encouraging people to have their say. Both the Trust and Audience Councils should raise their profile through a range of activities from face-to-face meetings to the use of new technology. The use of the web and “red button” were popular suggestions from the focus group attendees. However, it is important to remember that not all sections of society use or have access to modern day technology. The Trust should particularly aim to build contacts with groups in society which find the BBC “hard to reach” and who are less likely to engage spontaneously with the BBC or the Trust. The Council feels that, although a careful balance needs to be struck, the Trust could make more use of the BBC’s own channels and services to stimulate responses from viewers, listeners and users. The Council feels that in consulting licence payers, clear and comprehensible questioning is essential. Some focus groups have found it hard to engage with some of the questions posed by the Trust. Questions in consultations should be carefully drafted – not to oversimplify, but to present the issues in terms with which audiences can engage. At an Audience Engagement focus group held in June 2007 in Glasgow individuals suggested that in order for the Trust to be more open it should consider holding “Question Time” style programmes for licence payers to raise issues directly with the BBC Trust. It was also suggested that where the Trust had undertaken research, the results should be published.

3. What would encourage you to participate in a consultation?

Consultations need to have a clear purpose and be relevant to the group participating. The objective(s) should be clear and concise and an appropriate amount of information should be provided in advance of the consultation. Consultations need to be a two-way process and accessible to everyone. Different formats need to be considered for different audience groups. Some licence fee payers would not attend a large public event but would be more likely to participate in a smaller focus group type meeting. Location and the timing of the event are also of importance in ensuring a representative turnout. The focus group held in Glasgow felt that a local presence for the Trust was essential. In Scotland, the question arises of the extent to which a single audience council of 12 members is able to engage with audiences in a nation of distinctive regions, with a population of 5m people distributed across a third of the land mass of the UK. In addition, Council members feel that licence payers will be more likely to engage with the Trust/Council once it had been demonstrated that the Trust could deliver changes which benefited audiences. 4. What would prevent you or put you off participating? Participants may be put off participating if the consultation topic is not relevant to them and appears to be a lengthy process. Time constraints can be an issue with different sectors of the audience and must be thought through carefully when planning consultation activity. 5. How should the Trust communicate research findings to the public? Research findings should be publicised in the usual way and published by the Trust on its own website, as well as distributed to organisations, groups and/or sectors of the community involved in the engagement process. This allows everyone involved to have a holistic view of the process and in turn becomes a 360 degree exercise. 6. What would be the most effective ways for the BBC Trust to work with

interest groups to understand licence fee payers?

• Ensure continued dialogue/relationships and two- way communication with interest groups, building confidence in the Trust’s commitment to engage

• Build on contacts with regional and national opinion formers, interest groups and other local organisations to extend network of contacts

• Engage with “hard to reach” groups on their terms • Engage with groups on issues of importance to them • Genuine, equal and co-ordinated partnerships

• Be flexible – people may not want to come to a public event or take part in the full consultation process, they may wish to simply raise one or two points of importance to them

• Ensure findings from interest groups are tested beyond the interest group • Two of the most important tools for understanding audience attitudes are robust

research and the careful use of focus groups. However these are sophisticated methods which require careful handing to deliver benefits for audiences and the Council should be involved in design and interpretation of these activities within its area.

7. The BBC Trust will be consulting on its complaints framework later this year

– we are not, therefore, asking in detail about the complaints system as part of this consultation. But if you have any initial observations, please do let us have them here.

Clearly the opportunities to contact the BBC with comments and complaints is an important issue. However the key issue may be whether the culture of response in the BBC is sufficiently open, and how comments and complaints contribute to change and development within the BBC. This should be a focus of the complaints consultation. 8. What can Audience councils do to represent people like you?

N/A 9. How might you want to get involved in the work of Audience councils?

N/A 10. How can the BBC Trust give you confidence that it will take action? The Council feels that there is scope for the BBC Trust to be more visible. It needs to inform licence fee payers of its role by feeding back regularly on the actions it has taken as a result of audience engagement activity. Participants want to know the outcome of their participation. The Council feels that it has an important role to play in this process and can add value because it is closer to audiences in its particular area. Council and Trust should work together to develop systems which will allow for visible responses to issues raised and robust reporting back to audiences of the results which have been achieved. 11. What do you most want to hear about in terms of the Trust’s decisions and

the BBC’s performance? The outcomes and decisions that the Trust has taken as a result of the engagement process.

1.4 Audience Council Wales Based on its continuing accountability activity and responses from a group of people representing a range of communities in Wales at an at event 11 June 2007 to discuss the Trust’s audience engagement Themes which emerged from this event and Council’s activity Continuing dialogue and effective two way communication The meaningful way of securing a broad range of views is through continuing relationships and dialogue with communities. This helps avoid stereotyping and giving the impression of exploitation. Such an approach is the best way of ensuring effective engagement with under-represented groups and can be facilitated, or mediated, by representative organisations. People in such sections of society are often termed ‘hard to reach’ but they feel that it is the BBC that is hard to reach, not them. This demands that the Trust engage with them on their terms. Approaching such audience members in this way would be a way of building trust and overcoming the lack of trust that is currently felt in some sections of society, a mistrust arising from a perception of the media as distorting and inflaming issues. Young people feel that they tend to be portrayed as victims or villains. Asking young people what they think and discussing perceptions of youth issues in a continuing dialogue would be much more likely to elicit useful feedback from this sector of the audience. A sentiment echoed in the paper commissioned by the Trust from Luther Pendragon on its communication strategy which said: "Many opportunities from communication will involve small but influential audiences … the most productive opportunities may be prolonged and/or repeated encounters with small numbers of very engaged people, rather than brief, infrequent encounters with lots of generally disinterested people." People sometimes feel that BBC news priorities do not reflect the priorities of their communities. Council has encountered this amongst members of the black and minority ethnic community who say they do not find the BBC news relevant except for BBC World Service news. Young people say that they do not feel that the media represents the issues of importance to them. These are examples of why people should be encouraged not only to voice their concerns about current BBC output but also to say what they believe the BBC should be doing. These are issues of importance to these groups and engaging with them specifically on these topics would be more likely to be productive. Engaging with other groups on the issues of importance to them would be likewise. The Trust should pro-actively be delivering support structures for individual from groups in society which find it difficult to give their views to allow them to do so. Compared to this approach focus groups can be unrepresentative and it can be difficult ensure groups include people from a broad variety of backgrounds particularly from generally under-represented groups.

Complaints Most members are capable of navigating a complaint they have against the BBC, but relatively few will know how to approach the BBC to make positive suggestions for improvements. For example, someone who feels their ethnicity is not adequately reflected by the BBC can easily find a telephone number to lodge a complaint, however, someone with a suggestion about how the BBC could incorporate representation of their ethnicity into output would be uncertain how to approach the BBC, or even whether or not to it was worth trying. People accessing the complaints process often have unarticulated reservations regarding the host organisation and require assistance in articulating the uneasiness they feel. Audience Councils Audience Councils are close to the audience and so can identify and reach those individuals or social sectors which would not otherwise make contact with the BBC to seek their views and opinions. Engaging with Audiences Alongside Mangement Another conclusion of the advice from Luther Pendragon was: "The Trust … will have to exploit moments when audiences can be captivated by discussion of their own interests." Often the immediate concerns of the audience focus on issues which are more appropriate for management to deal with. The Trust should take advantage of these occasions when members of the audience are prompted to engage with the BBC about issues relating to their own interests. BBC management has existing community strategies, the Trust should consider, in the context of the separation of the Trust and the Executive, how it can best use these opportunities to engage with the audience. This would be an approach that would make sense from the audience’s point of view. One example is the community buses which are well regarded and could be used as a means of allowing the Trust to access public feedback. Such an approach makes the Trust’s active, rather than reactive, engagement with the audience more feasible. People who have a positive interest and wish to contribute will be attracted to contribute in this way, not just those people who have an axe to grind, allowing an audience influence on the Trust not limited only to the. The fact that the BBC’s portrayal of gay and lesbian people in Wales had changed fundamentally during the last few years was commented upon to Council. Stonewall had concerns about the way in which gay and lesbian people had been portrayed in the context of the Clydach murder trial investigation few years ago. Subsequently meetings and workshops were held between Stonewall and journalists had had a mutually beneficial effect in terms of making broadcasters aware of issues relating to gay and lesbian people and also

Stonewall learning about the way in which the BBC dealt with news stories. Is this an area in which management should exclusively be involved or should the Trust look for opportunities to facilitate the direct conversation been BBC management and different audiences? Visibility Many say that they do not understand the responsibilities of the Trust, why it was established and what it can do for them. One major priority for the Trust should be clarifying these points and educating the public that the Trust is here to ensure the BBC is held accountable to them the audience. Once informed about the benefits the Trust people may be more inclined to become more involved with and contribute to the Trust. This is another point which is referred to by Luther Pendragon: "The Trust's communication with its audiences must also be seen to be done" The BBC community buses have received positive feedback. Using the service to seek public feedback and evaluation would yield increased involvement and engagement and could access a different audience. Language Members of the audience feel disenfranchised by the constant reference to licence fee payers. Groups such as older people who do not pay the licence fee can feel that they are not entitled to make their views known about BBC output because of the references to licence fee payers.

2. Response from the Central Religious Advisory Committee 1. Introduction We welcome the opportunity to comment on the BBC Trust’s Audience Engagement Consultation. In our response we have made some general comments about the Consultation which we hope will be of interest to the Trust, but we have focused on the question: “What would be the most effective ways for the BBC Trust to work with interest groups to understand licence fee payers?” We hope the following response demonstrates the past and future value of the Central Religious Advisory Committee (CRAC) to the BBC. We also suggest a way forward which we hope will allow the BBC to continue drawing on our expertise as an advisory body while sitting more comfortably within the Trust’s consultation framework under the new Charter. 2. Religion in Britain today This year’s edition of Social Trends shows that in 2005 an estimated 60% of the population belonged to a specific religion. The 2001 census revealed an even higher figure with well over 80% of the population describing themselves as belonging to a particular faith. Church congregations in our cities, especially London, are growing, partly as a result of immigration, which has also increased our religious diversity as a nation. Those who identify themselves with a faith form the biggest constituency for the BBC in this country – a vast, complex and profoundly important and influential constituency. Over the past few years there have been successive rises in the number of students choosing religious studies at ‘A’ Level and at GSCE - 8% more students at GCSE in 2006 than in 2005. Religious Studies is one of the fastest growing subjects at examination level – something few would have predicted a decade ago. Religion is central to the identity of many – both through birth and through the beliefs we may later come to embrace. It is a key determinator of attitudes and behaviour. The BBC itself has recognised the importance of religion in broadcasting, for example, through the initial courses created by its own College of Journalism. It is clear that accurate reporting requires journalists to have a good understanding of the religious map of the world. It is a highly religious one, a factor easily overlooked in a culture like our own with many secular assumptions. A YouGov poll for a session at the 2005 Edinburgh International Television Festival showed that while 71% of the general population of this country would call themselves religious, only

21% of a sample of representatives of the TV industry considered themselves so. This mismatch would suggest that the BBC needs to take care when making decisions about religious content on behalf of its audience. 3. The value of the Central Religious Advisory Committee 3.1 Taking an overview Since its inception over 80 years ago CRAC has offered advice to the BBC about the kaleidoscope of religious activity in this country and the competing claims of various groups within it. CRAC is the only body appointed by the BBC which includes people of all major faiths who work together to achieve a single aim – to promote accurate understanding and coverage of the whole subject of religion in the media. Members of CRAC are drawn from those who bring with them a wide range of opinion within their own constituency and who have credibility within their community. In the past this has been done by the BBC in consultation with the particular faith traditions. We have broad experience of religious issues and considerable theological proficiency. As a group we come to the table with a balance of expertise, a desire for open and honest discussion, and some knowledge of broadcasting and its demands. We support the Trust in its commitment, through its consultation processes, actively to seek the views of a wide range of stakeholders, including a range of faith groups and individual churches. We would not seek to replace this. However, this process does rely on individual groups taking the initiative to respond. Where CRAC can add value to the consultation process is through offering a perspective that is not the product of a series of individual communities of interest but the overview of a truly representative body. CRAC is not an interest group with a single homogeneous point of view. There are many subtleties which exist within and between faith groups and these can be easily misunderstood. One of our roles is to understand those subtleties and to help interpret a series of individual perspectives. Inter faith networks do exist, but we as a body also draw in those not part of any particular inter faith organisation and who don’t generally seek to engage in inter faith dialogue. We provide a means to understanding issues in the news – medical ethics, social policy etc. We are also the only such body that meets without other competing agendas. As the influence of religion becomes more powerful, and perhaps more problematic, the BBC and the Trust may receive many conflicting opinions, requests and pressures from unrepresentative lobby groups. We would seek to put those conflicting views into context and offer advice on particularly contentious issues. 3.2 The critical friend CRAC is, and always has been, a critic of aberrant religious practice and not the promoter of all and every form of religion or religious broadcasting.

We are not a lobby group in the usual meaning, although we are keen to see increasing amounts of resources and airtime for religious output and for all genres that include references to religious topics. We are keen to see the same rigour and care being applied to religious topics that are applied to other subjects. We are vigilant about any possibility of its marginalisation, as we know the vast scope of issues and interests which have a religious, faith or belief dimension. We seek to be an intelligent interpreter of the contemporary religious scene as it applies to the demands of broadcasting. We offer such interpretation in critical solidarity with the BBC, coming from within rather than beyond the corporation. The BBC has a real responsibility to portray religious issues with due impartiality and objectivity, although not uncritically. The influence of religion and belief in a wide range of news stories is apparent – not just in politics, but in issues such as abortion, education, sexuality and euthanasia. As the profile of religion in news events becomes higher, the need to identify and explain issues of faith behind the news stories becomes more important. CRAC brings to this discussion rationality and intellectual rigour in an area of life where getting things wrong can have dramatic consequences. Where informed opinion needs to be sought quickly, CRAC is the body which is in place and ready to be consulted. A virtual committee would not be so successful because there would be no forum for debate and discussion among people who know, trust and respect one another. 3.3 Social cohesion CRAC is a body which brings together not just the Christian churches in the United Kingdom with Judaism but with the other main world faiths as well. We include in our number Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jews as well as representatives of the various churches. In its early years CRAC’s very existence meant that the BBC contributed considerably to the creation of a largely harmonious and united response to the advent of broadcasting across a whole range of religious traditions in this country. This promotion of social cohesion remains an imperative, especially in an age in which there is even greater religious diversity and potential for religious conflict. This sits more easily now with the BBC’s aim to promote public value and social cohesion than at any earlier time. To dispense with a multi-faith body at the very time the BBC has publicly espoused these values would cast doubt on the BBC’s commitment to them. Faith and belief are emotive issues. They are potentially divisive but at the same time potentially provide a powerful force for social cohesion. CRAC creates a supportive and objective environment for discussion of the most formative and influential area of human understanding, attitudes and behaviour. 3.4 More than a review body It is not the function of CRAC to provide comprehensive audience reaction to religious programmes. We seek the best quality religious content and support the work of the Religion and Ethics department while also being concerned about accuracy, understanding and presentation of religious issues in news, current affairs, drama and all other genres where religious issues appear.

As a review body we do look at programmes after they have been broadcast. The reflections of the Committee have been helpful to programme makers and suggestions have sometimes led to the development of different styles and standards of output. When CRAC members for example became concerned about the prevalence of ‘talking heads’ on religious programmes we were able to make suggestions which led to a significant change of style. Too often we thought religion was seen narrowly in terms of intellectual belief, something going on in the head rather than expressed in practice, ritual and community life. Instead of religion being talked about, why not see religious communities of various kinds simply living out their faith? In their various ways The Children of Helen House, A Country Parish, A Seaside Parish, Extreme Pilgrim, The Monastery and The Convent were all attempts to respond to this suggestion. Although the role of review may be an important one, CRAC continues to offer much more than that. Broader discussions between CRAC and the then Chair of Governors Michael Grade about the place of religion in broadcasting led to a major Governors’ seminar on religion in 2005. This in turn has led to greater understanding of the importance and rising profile of religion in the media. 4. Reflections on the Audience Engagement Consultation While this paper focuses on the future role of CRAC, during our discussions we noted other observations on the wider issues of audience engagement which may be useful to the Trust. CRAC supports the Trust’s desire that consultations should be “open to all”, but we also recognise that this presents a challenge in generating a meaningful dialogue. Many different channels of communication exist today, but these won’t necessarily lead to engagement. In particular the Trust will need to engage with those who would not normally seek to take part in such consultations – for example with some young audiences and communities who use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. The Trust will also need to counter a current general cynicism about public consultations, to ensure they are not seen as processes designed only to endorse decisions already made. 5. The Future In many ways, CRAC has been content with its role to date in advising the Governors and BBC Management. But we understand that the new governance arrangements make this problematic. However, we believe there is a potential way forward. We propose the following basic framework for the continuing role of CRAC as a body appointed by the BBC:

• The BBC Trust should endorse the value of CRAC and draw upon its resources, when appropriate.

We recognise that the Trust will be using formal consultation extensively. CRAC would not see itself as the only body which the Trust consults in order to gain a response from the faith communities (indeed, we would encourage wide formal consultation) but CRAC could also take stock periodically of the themes arising from the Trust's consultations in relation to religion. That would be one of the ways of taking a broad overview.

• Programme makers in general and Religion and Ethics in particular would have access to advice from CRAC and the expertise of its individual members, when appropriate.

• The Chair of CRAC should present an annual report to the BBC Trust, taking a

broad overview of the BBC's engagement with religion, and have an annual meeting with the Chair of the Trust.

• The Chair of the BBC Trust should be consulted on the appointment of the Chair of

CRAC. • CRAC membership more generally should continue to be appointed on the present

basis. We recognise there are merits in moving towards a more formal recruitment system but would advise against making members formal representatives of their faith community. The benefits of CRAC to date lie in part because people have not felt constrained to take a 'formal' position on behalf of their Church, religion or faith tradition, while at the same time they have had wide knowledge of their own faith community. We think that this way of using one of the BBC's longest standing committees would bring new value to it, fit the new governance arrangements and ensure the BBC Trust receives a balanced overview of one of the contemporary world's most significant, influential and potentially life enhancing or life diminishing areas of human understanding and experience.