I’ve been thinking about the future of the Digital Engagement Team at DH.
If you’ve been reading any of Stephen’s blogs, you’ll have read about some of the changes happening here at DH. The department is getting smaller, and we are reorganising our functions. This has given us an opportunity to think about how and what we deliver in the future.
This work has reinforced my view that our digital engagement work should focus on the core of DH work: supporting policy engagement and championing open policy techniques. We aim to build stronger relationships with our digital communities, make it easier for people to understand the work of the department, and provide ways for people to participate in our policy making work.
Here is what I’ve committed us to:
- directly engaging with citizens affected by - or with a stake in - the work of the department
- using innovative digital engagement techniques to help individuals participate in the policy making process, and to enable us to communicate the outcomes of our policies
- building sustained relationships with online communities and audience groups, and using data and insight to guide all our decisions about the right engagement techniques and channels to use
We are already doing some of this work. Lewis blogged recently about how he is taking forward our social media listening function and Philippa described how she is building our email capability. The big challenge for us will be to find ways to support the department to engage and consult in a meaningful way with fewer people to do it, but there is no doubt in my mind that more sophisticated digital engagement will help us to do more with less.