Public dialogue power point presentation (ccc & mr)

Introducing public dialogue

Amy PollardDialogue Manager, Sciencewise

Josephine Suherman-BaileyPolicy Analyst, Sciencewise

Robin ClarkeDialogue and Engagement Specialist, Sciencewise

www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk

About this session (1hr 30 mins)

• Introduction to public dialogue• Real life case studies• Routes to further support• Questions and discussion

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www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk 3


What proportion of human genetic material would give a transgenic goat human rights?

A) It should never have human rightsB) 25%C) 51%D) 75%E) 100%


What is public dialogue?

A process of engagement that brings together members of the public, policy makers and experts

• To discuss in depth, and where possible reach conclusions about a particular issue.

• To highlight the social, ethical and practical issues raised by up-coming policies.

• To make more robust decisions reflecting (rather than at odds with) public values.

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Why?


The engagement spectrum


Decide Announce Defend vs Engage Deliberate Decide


Costs of decisions

For simple, uncontroversial issues, a narrow engagement may be cost effective


Costs of decisions

But for complex, controversial issues, an upfront investment in more substantive engagement avoids much greater costs of conflict.


What can change?

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What does it mean in practice?

• Bringing together ‘the whole system in the room’ – the public, experts and policy makers

• Independent facilitators • Clear expectations of the extent of

public influence (informing but not deciding)

• An informed discussion• Often meeting more than once,

allowing time for reflection• Evaluation afterwards

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Impact on policy

• Opens up potential for movement on controversial areas of policy

• Delivers significant cost savings• Increases responsiveness and

accountability of policy• Supports behaviour change

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Sciencewise is…..

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Josephine Suherman-Bailey

Policy Analyst, Sciencewise

Case Study for Public Dialogue – Carbon emissions

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Case Study – Carbon emissions

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is an independent statutory body under the Climate Change Act 2008. Under the Act, the CCC is required to have ‘regard to the desirability of involving the public in the exercise of its functions’.

The public dialogue project was set up to feed into development of the Committee’s advice to government as part of setting the Fourth Carbon Budget.

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Carbon emissions - the challenges

The Committee on Climate Change needed to develop an idea of the public’s understanding of and views towards the role of the UK government in addressing the global climate change challenge, and of how different actions could affect the UK in terms of energy bills, price changes, economic costs and competitiveness.

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Public Dialogue – Sciencewise’s Role

Commissioning body: Committee on Climate Change (CCC) Duration of process: the dialogue process took place within a six-week time period in September October 2013, with the public involved over a 4 day periodTotal public participants involved: 25Total stakeholders involved: 8

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Public Dialogue – Aims and Objectives

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• What is the public understanding of the risks of climate change?

• What is the UK’s role and responsibility?• What is the public’s understanding of

and attitudes to impacts of UK action on energy bills?

• What is the public’s understanding of, and attitudes towards, the wider implications of UK action?

• Does the public think the case for UK action has changed significantly since the 4th Carbon Budget was legislated in June 2011?

To help the CCC understand the views of the public to inform its review of the Government’s 4th Carbon Budget.


How did we involve the public? (1)

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The public dialogue took the form of three panel discussions held in London over a four-day period in October 2013 with the same 25 members of the public attending each event.

The first two events were in the evening and the final event was on a Saturday. Each event lasted between 3 and 3½ hours.

The whole dialogue process, including preparation of materials, took place within a six-week timescale. The design for the public dialogue adopted elements of the Citizen’s Jury model.


How did we involve the public? (2)

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The dialogue participants formed a panel that was supported through several stages of work to enable deep engagement with the issues. This started by exploring the context of carbon emission reductions and moved on to making recommendations to the CCC.

Before the first event, public participants were provided with four short think pieces to introduce them to the challenges of the issues before they considered them in the face-to-face sessions


Key messages from public dialogue

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Attendees made the following recommendations to the CCC:

• Greater public debate and engagement on the sorts of measures the Committee is considering in the 4th Carbon Budget review

• Education at all levels on climate change and carbon emission reductions

• Acting now by investing in safe, renewable energy sources

• Incentivising positive contributions by individuals and business in the form of grants and tax breaks

• Keeping data up to date and using current data to inform policy advice

• The issue of climate change is too important to be swayed by party politics and independent advice followed by legislation, as necessary, is essential.

“A simple education [programme] to explain to us how climate change will actually affect our lives in England and then worldwide.”

Public participant


Impact and Influence (1)

- The outcomes of the public dialogue influenced the second part of the CCC’s formal advice to the Government on the 4th Carbon Budget, which was published in December 2013.

- The dialogue is referenced in the CCC’s main advice to Government, while the panel’s six key recommendations are outlined in full in a supporting Technical Report.

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• The public voiced strong support for the UK taking an international leadership role in this field

• The dialogue helped to identify specific technologies that the public were comfortable with and supportive of (e.g. heat pumps) and those that they were less enthusiastic about (e.g. Carbon Capture and Storage); this gave the CCC “pause for thought” on supporting specific technologies themselves



Policy maker view

“The dialogue demonstrated that members of the public were keen to engage on issues around climate change, and in particular on the means and costs of meeting the UK’s carbon budgets. They were supportive of UK leadership, as well as providing insights on specific measures. It was reassuring that, in general, they understood and supported the CCC’s emerging narrative on emissions reduction for the fourth carbon budget…. It has raised the question for us about whether we should be doing more on behaviour change and factoring this into our analyses and projections.”

CCC interviewee

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Mitochondria replacement: A public dialogue case

study

Robin Clarke

Dialogue and Engagement Specialist, Sciencewise


“to seek public views on emerging IVF-based techniques to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial disease,” with support from Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre

Conduct a public dialogue exercise to explore:• The ethical aspects and issues involved

in techniques to avoid mitochondrial disease; and

• The practical implications of allowing such techniques within regulation

Regulations would need to be passed in both houses of Parliament

Mitochondria replacement: What the government asked HFEA to do?


What is mitochondria replacement?

Mitochondrial disease caused by faults in the small amount of DNA in the mitochondria, inherited from the mother• Pronuclear transfer & maternal

spindle transfer: transfer nuclear material from an egg/embryo containing unhealthy mitochondria to a healthy donor egg/embryo.

• DNA from parents and a donor• These techniques, which are referred to

as mitochondria replacement, are illegal in treatment in the UK.


Mitochondria replacement: hopes & concerns

• Estimated 1 in 5,000 people affected by mitochondrial disease, around 1 in 6,500 children thought to develop serious mitochondrial disorder.

• Range of conditions linked to mitochondrial disease – from mild to life threatening – no known cure or treatment.

Hopes? …for women with mitochondrial disease who want children genetically related to them without passing on disease.

Concerns?... “3 parent babies”; akin to cloning, genetic modification of humans; interfering with natural or spiritual aspects of reproduction…

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Aim of the dialogue & consultation

To identify:

• The process of deliberation people use to form views on mitochondria replacement

• The differences between informed and uninformed public views on these techniques

• Interested stakeholders’ arguments for and against the use of the techniques

• Analysis of the ethical and regulatory issues involved.

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Multi-method approach

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Selected public audiences (“uninformed”) • Public representative survey –

1000 face to face interviews/ “top of head” views with little information

• 3 sets of deliberative public workshops (met twice) – 90 participants in total.

• Scientists & Bio-ethicist specialist input

• Videos, posters, quizzes, info sheets, presentations & questions

Self-Selecting/ Interested audiences (“informed”)• Open consultation

website & questionnaire• 2 x Open public

consultation meetings• Patient focus group –

those affected by mitochondrial disease


Key messages from deliberative workshops

Broadly agreed support for the new techniques with caveats and conditions: • Individual parent choice• Provision of information to make an informed choice• Regulated environment• Parents should be offered counselling• Donor’s identity should be protected – though maybe some

information to the child?• Fair access to the techniques – available on NHS free of

charge• Only to produce a healthy child, no other purpose

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Impact & Influence • A total of 3,004 public and stakeholder participants

involved: • 1,069 public participants - 90 in deliberative

workshops plus 979 in poll survey;

• 1935 stakeholders - 7 in focus group, 92 in open meetings and 1,836 responses to the open consultation questionnaire.

• Led to direct policy influence, outputs integrated into the HFEA process to develop recommendations to Government

• Enabled promotion of new legislation (draft regulation for consultation – earlier this year) to allow and regulate the use mitochondria replacement techniques, by demonstrating public support in principle, and the precautions necessary to retain that support.

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Impact & Influence #2

• Sciencewise was seen as bringing a 'badge of quality'.

• Evaluation & feedback, suggests this was an exemplary process, particularly the stakeholder engagement in the governance, and the multi-strand consultation.

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Public dialogue is particularly valuable when….

• Policy is at an early stage of development and public interests and concerns may be satisfied if understood and responded to early

• Issues are /potentially contentious and there is potentially strong public interest

• Technical expertise and stakeholder views alone are not sufficient

• Successful implementation will depend on getting the practicalities right


Issue still being hotly debated…


Currently being debated and voted on in Parliament


Sciencewise Resources

Project funding and support

Dialogue & Engagement Specialists

Training and Mentoring

Social Intelligence & Research

Website

Newsletter

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Q&A

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Contact usJosephine Suherman-Bailey (

[email protected]), Policy Analyst, Sciencewise

Amy Pollard ([email protected]), Dialogue Manager, Sciencewise.

Website: www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk

Helpline: 01235 753 645

Carbon Emissions Case Study in Detail http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Uploads/Traject-CarbEmisReducv07.pdf/

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Public dialogue power point presentation (ccc & mr)

Government & Nonprofit

Transcript of Public dialogue power point presentation (ccc & mr)