For the past few years, we’ve operated a thing called the Citizen Space Aggregator. It’s a free service which brings into one place all the publicly visible consultations being run on the Citizen Space platform. (Citizen Space is our online software for managing public involvement activity.)
The Aggregator is like an uber-consultation hub, letting you see listings from Wyong Shire Council alongside those from the UK’s Ministry of Justice; Cumbria Constabulary alongside the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (yes, that is a real thing and, yes, they run consultations too). More than 100 diverse organisations around the world use Citizen Space to consult citizens, staff and stakeholders, so the Aggregator ends up encompassing a huge range of activity.
It started because we, having a bit of a thing for numbers, wanted to keep track of how many consultations were being run on our system.
Once upon a time, that number was zero.
Last time we looked, it was 6,879.
We get pretty excited about that, not least cos it suggests we’re somewhere along the way to our stated aim: ‘we want to have our apps used by every democratically accountable organisation in the world, transforming – in small but significant ways – the lives of hundreds of millions of citizens.’
But we’re not the only ones who can get good use out of the Aggregator. Here are 3 reasons why you – as a consultation practitioner or member of the public or digital government enthusiast or civil servant – should love it too:
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Examples to learn from
It’s always useful to see what other people are doing. If you’re responsible for planning, designing or building online surveys, the Aggregator is a great way to learn from how others are doing similar jobs. Whatever kind of public body you work for, and whatever topic you need to consult on, chances are there’s an example already within Aggregator. You can filter by organisation or search by keyword and quickly find digital consultations to help inform your own thinking.
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Valuable public data
With so many organisations now using Citizen Space for their consultations, the Aggregator becomes a valuable source of public data. Not because it gives you ‘behind the scenes’ access with which to try and ‘catch out’ government bodies, nor because it affords some roundabout way of generating ‘civic insight’ or whatever, but simply because it points up a direct opportunity to participate in decisions that affect you. Live in Bristol (as many of us do) and have an opinion on education in the area? Aggregator can point you at the schools admissions consultation currently running. Work in trade or transport in Scotland? Aggregator can tell you about the Scottish Government’s consultation on the country’s rail freight strategy. There are thousands of important decisions being opened up to public consideration all the time, of which Aggregator can help increase awareness. These are things where the consulting body is already trying to be transparent, where they’re actively seeking public input, and the Aggregator just provides one more simple way for more people to discover those opportunities to participate.
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More of our new, responsive look
We’re continually looking to improve our products, and that includes making sure that they look good and work well in the frequently-shifting world of digital platforms. In 2016, we’re rolling out a new visual style for Citizen Space, close to that of the new Dialogue, and you can get a bit of a taster with new Aggregator which uses a similar design language. As well as looking clean and contemporary and neat and all those good things, the design is also fully responsive, created with the ever-increasing numbers of mobile users in mind. If you’re an existing Citizen Space customer, or thinking about adopting the platform, you might want to check out Aggregator as a bit of a sneak-preview for where our look and feel is headed…
You can use the new Aggregator at aggregator.citizenspace.com
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Want to see your consultations appear on Aggregator? Get ‘em on Citizen Space!
