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DELIBERATIVE AND INCLUSIONARY PROCESSES A Report from Two Seminars edited by Tim O’Riordan, Jacqueline Burgess and Bron Szerszynski CSERGE Working Paper PA 99-06

DELIBERATIVE AND INCLUSIONARY PROCESSES A Report from Two Seminars edited by Tim O’Riordan1, Jacqueline Burgess2 and Bron Szerszynski3

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Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment University of East Anglia And University College London 2

Environment and Society Research Unit University College London

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Centre for the Study of Environmental Change University of Lancaster

Acknowledgements The Centre for Economic and Social Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) is a designated research centre of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The editors warmly acknowledge the financial support of the ESRC for this series of seminars and the additional sponsorship by the Environment Agency and English Nature. ISSN 0967-8875

Abstract Three University research centres, CSERGE in East Anglia, ESRC in London, and the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change (CSEC) in Lancaster have combined to convene a series of seminars over three years on the issues and practices underlying deliberative and inclusionary processes in environmental decision making. This working paper contains a summary of presentations given at the first seminar, held in London in December 1998. It primarily covers the papers and the commentaries presented in the second seminar, held in Norwich in July 1999. Deliberative and inclusionary processes (DIPs) cover a wide range of procedures and practices. These are all designed to widen the basis of direct participation in environmental decision making, and to deepen the level of discussion so that underlying meanings and values are more fully explored. The purpose of DIPs is, in essence, profoundly democratic. DIPs are aimed not just at creating more richly informed decisions that are owned by and have the broad consent of those participating. DIPs also seek to build and to engender a creative sense of citizenship in participants. This is why the objective “inclusionary” is incorporated: it applies to a process of defining and redefining interests that stakeholders introduce as the collective experience of participation evolves. As participants become more empowered, i.e. more respected and more self-confident, so it is assumed they may become more ready to adjust, to listen, to learn, and to accommodate to a greater consensus. For this outcome to happen it depends on a co-operative formal governance that is willing to incorporate and to respond to such procedures, as well as a citizenry with the capacity to carry through the arduous processes of co-governing for a better society and environment. These are difficult propositions to meet, so DIPs remain at a pilot phase in their introduction and evaluation. Nevertheless, the mood of the times is to be more participatory and inclusionary. It is therefore appropriate to assess critically the circumstances in which DIPs can succeed, or fail, or to evolve to be more creatively influential. This is the broad ideological setting for the three year seminar as a whole. The London seminar examined the widening political and societal accommodating factors of DIPs, and began to assess a typology and a characterisation of different approaches. This seminar heard from those responsible for commissioning DIPs as to just how far and fast this innovation has come and may go. There is the issue of the degree to which informal procedures of civic democracy can get into the much longer established formal procedures for governance. Many of these are broadly defined in constitutional and statutory remits, so this evolving relationship has become an important theme of debate and analysis.

The London seminar concluded that DIPs should be analysed more carefully for their contribution, purpose and processes, and that the methods through which values were elicited and accommodated needed more attention. These attributes of DIPs are clearly drawn by the context of the policy-making, power-broking and decision-taking settings and methods. They will also be affected by the reasons for introducing DIP and by the political framing of any results emanating from the DIP in question. Furthermore, the seminar concluded that the evaluation of the success, appropriateness, learning capacity, and other characteristics of DIPs, according to a robust typology of purpose and function, needed much more attention. This was the setting for the Norwich seminar where it was discovered that there is no clear and articulated methodology for ensuring either deliberation or inclusiveness. As noted above, so much depends on the purpose of the DIPs; the democratic setting, the expectations and relationships between stakeholders, the willingness to train and empower stakeholders, and the preparation of all those concerned for what procedures are to be followed, or designed with their assistance. So the matter of methodology requires further investigation and some sort of guidebook. As for evaluation, there is even greater variability about the role, the timing, the method and the processes for this exercise. Again the institutional context of any DIP will be one critical issue, as will be the nature of the issue under consideration (short term and specific or long term and evolving). The willingness of the clients and the participants to be evaluated is also a matter of considerable importance; and, there is nearly always ambiguity as to the criteria against which to evaluate a DIP. Some suggestions on approaches to evaluation are offered in the introductory essay. The seminar also heard how a DIP can be very dispiriting for its promoters if it is not set in a culture of trust, or support, or where there is a history of local scepticism over the previous handling of public views by the sponsoring body. Furthermore, DIPs have a habit of taking over the decision processes, of stirring up opposition and dissatisfaction, and of absorbing huge amounts of time from key players. Much depends on preparation and on the assessment of trust amongst the social networks involved. DIPs may well prove to be a way forward towards better environmental decision making, so the seminars are timely in that the procedures are still evolving. Moreover, the institutional settings that promote, guide and respond to DIPs are still accommodating to this new and lively puppy in their midst. It is appropriate to take stock, but the assessment that follows in this working paper will surely change as the DIPs whelp becomes a mature mastiff.

Table of Contents Summary of the London Seminar

Kevin Collins and Jacquie Burgess

Introduction to the Norwich Seminar

Tim O’Riordan

How was it for you? Issues and dilemmas in the evaluation of deliberative processes

Jane Hunt and Bronislaw Szerszynski

Deliberation and inclusion in Local Environment Agency Plans: prioritising issues in the New Forest

Judy Clark and Jacquie Burgess

What the North can learn from the South: deliberative and inclusionary studies and development studies

Katrina Brown

Three case studies of DIPs (i) The North Norfolk Quiet Lanes Project

Rosie Ferguson and Anna Graves

(ii) Searching for fairness: a case study of water resources management in the Lark Valley, Suffolk

Nicole Dando

(iii) How communities network: a case study of Mile Cross, Norwich

Richard Stowe

Summary of the London Seminar Kevin Collins and Jacquie Burgess Centre for the Study of Environmental Change University College, London E-mail: [email protected] 1.

Deliberative and inclusionary processes: their contribution to environmental governance, by Dan Bloomfield, Kevin Collins, Charlotte Fry and Richard Munton

The UCL writing team undertook to produce a major review of the deliberative and inclusionary literatures. The paper had two aims: • to explain why DIPs should be seen as a significant, even essential, ingredient in the development of more responsive forms of decision making capable of accounting for the diversity of values and opinions within societies • to promote a reflexive interrogation of their use, nature and outcomes, especially when they speak to environmental questions. Their added value cannot simply be assumed. The practical purpose is to extend the debate on the merits, weaknesses and applicability of DIPs so that the latter can be entered into with greater confidence and with a more realistic appreciation of the benefits they can be expected to deliver and to whom. Although the introduction of DIPs is being driven by broad political concerns, the authors argued that the complexities of environmental issues are both contributing to these general political concerns, and to the need for an inclusive approach to environmental management that cuts across the traditional institutional structures of government. Moreover, as social values about the environment continue to develop, a deliberative approach to their analysis and appraisal should infuse decision-making practice. The authors commitment is based not only in the belief that DIPs can (not will) lead to ‘better’ decisions in environmental and social terms. They also considered the prospect that the processes themselves will stimulate social learning of value to a society where trust in established governance procedures is low, uncertainties of many kinds (e.g. security of employment; state support in retirement; global warming) are viewed as growing, and the market is increasingly rejected as either a reliable or equitable means of addressing these fears on its own. Thus DIPs are not to be seen merely as a mechanism of achieving greater understanding, or even consensus, over environmental issues within a fragmenting civil society. Drawing upon Habermas, such procedures

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may have ‘transformative potential’ allowing those with no or a weak voice to exert influence on decision making outcomes. The paper is divided into 7 main sections. The first seeks critically to examine the key notions of deliberation, inclusion, participatory democracy and governance. The second outlines emerging patterns of governance and how these relate to environmental issues. The third seeks to account for the growing interest in DIPs, drawing first on the abstract argumentation of Habermas and others in their concern for democratised communicative action as the basis for systems of governance. This more abstract positioning is followed by an empirical analysis of the range of social and political processes, which the authors argue are having a powerful effect on the nature and outlook of contemporary society. These processes are examined through three filters: (i) socio-cultural pluralism; (ii) the gathering sense of powerlessness; (iii) the shifting social and realist constructions of the environmental crisis. This is followed by two sections that discuss firstly what benefits DIPs offer to questions of the environment, and secondly the opportunities and obstacles faced by those trying to use DIPs in the field of environmental governance. The conclusion to the paper outlines an agenda of research issues for those who wish to promote and implement a more deliberative and inclusionary prospectus. The authors found Patsy Healey’s distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ infrastructures in decision-making useful, and argued that DIPs represent a key element in the soft infrastructure of decision-making, operating alongside existing institutional structures and practices. While this distinction is helpful, it is important to go beyond this dichotomy and examine the means by which DIPs and their outcomes can inform and shape the hard infrastructure without being captured by the interests that reside within it. This transformative potential is fundamental to the success of DIPs. An active, reciprocal relationship is central to enhanced governance, and raises the key questions of the role of the state in relation to civil society. The authors wish to see DIPs develop in ways which address how the soft infrastructure can create new rules of socioenvironmental engagement and new institutional arrangements, so that a social politics of deliberation and inclusion can provide the realm of environmental governance with the realised transformative potential that it requires.

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On social intelligence and contemporary politics: some implications for 'The Third Way', by Robin Grove-White.

Robin Grove-White argues that the combination of new economic and geopolitical realities, reinforcing technological innovation and diffusion, are changing the very nature of our societies from within. These processes are stimulating a range of distinct, but nevertheless more or less convergent, social theories by sociologists such as Beck, Giddens, Bauman, Castells, Albrow, Hajer and Wynne. But they are also being reflected in new political debates. As previously established loyalties and identities dissolve - or at the very least become increasingly fragmented and conditional - under these new conditions, so the search is intensifying for fresh patterns of relationship between state and citizen, appropriate to the new circumstances. Since the election of the Labour Government in mid-1997, such attempts have become steadily more explicit in Britain. This fresh perspective finds expression in burgeoning political debates around 'The Third Way'. This represents an attempt to develop a new politics in the light of greater cultural pluralism, as well as shifts in ethical beliefs and values that are reflected in what Giddens terms 'life politics'. The potentialities of new 'deliberative' processes and mechanisms for tuning in to the public's own priorities are central to debates about the Third Way. New 'deliberative' mechanisms can help attune government to people's priorities in the new circumstances. Moreover the aspiration goes beyond simply new forms of 'consultation'; fresh patterns of continuing interaction between citizens and the powers-that-be are being sought, for the benefit of both. Drawing on two pieces of research by members of CSEC (a late-1996 study of public sensibilities towards genetically modified foods and plants, published as the report 'Uncertain World'; and a three year monitoring of activities in the 'Pilot Sustainable Communities' initiatives under the Government's 'Going for Green' programme), the paper made two important arguments. The first concerns the crucial significance of the researchers' own framing assumptions in designing the deliberative processes themselves. through the design and 'choreography' of the discussions, the researchers played - as must always be the case when 'outsiders' seek to explore public attitudes - an unavoidable role in helping shape not only the framework of discussion, but also the very notion of the individual subject's tacit field of possibilities as a human being, in the particular context of inquiry. All of this points to a crucial challenge involved in the promotion of deliberative processes, in the sense advanced by ‘Third Way’ advocates. Politicians, civil servants and public agencies have jobs to do. A wealth of

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research experience suggests their tendency to frame public 'consultations' in terms which accord with what they feel to be potentially digestible, politically and administratively. This is understandable - but a consequence may be to occlude, distort, and ultimately misrepresent how people, the objects of the consultation, actually understand and relate to the matter at issue. How are new 'Third Way' deliberative processes to engage with realities like these, which point to limitations in government's own capacity to hear what people are saying, in their own terms? Second, a particular source of tension has been the continuing difficulty experienced by research teams in winning acknowledgement at national level for the significance of their 'local' qualitative findings. There is a need for context-specific 'sustainability' priorities to be enabled to emerge at local level, rather than being framed to conform to nationally-devised templates such as the 'Green Code'. An increasingly evident difficulty for 'Third Way' extensions of democracy is that there appears to be only limited capacity at the interstices of central government itself for absorbing, let alone responding to, 'deliberative' findings framed in unfamiliar terms. The paper concludes that the operationallyconvenient, instrumental representations of human reality embedded in the practices of many official institutions may now be part of the problem, to which new deliberative mechanisms are being seen as an answer. The fact is, questions about human nature and how it is understood and reflected within government lie close to the heart of the 'deliberation' issue. 3.

On linking formal and informal governance, by Tim O’Riordan

The argument developed in this paper is that participatory and representative democracies do not mix well. They have to co-evolve, and we have very little experience of how that can successfully be achieved. Co-evolution means building on the strengths and energies of each other, then adjusting by helping each to rid itself of its weaknesses and threats. Local government is seeking to remove itself from the grip of a quango informal democracy. This is the focus of re-democratisation by a more participatory form of civil society. Deliberative and inclusionary processes may be in vogue. But they will only attain their purpose if they empathise with a changing role for well-established practices of formal accountability. That accountability is part of democratic custom, as well as a statutory requirement, and it normally carries with it rules of procedure and due processes of consultation and evaluation. Deliberative and inclusionary processes may appear to fit neatly into such arrangements. But these techniques are too ill-tried, and too dependent on their own momentum for successful early entry into formal democracy. The consequence is that such informal processes of governance can all too easily rub up against formality of established decision making procedures.

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Furthermore, it is possible that consensus may never be reached. Differences of viewpoint are both institutional and personal. The very act of entering into deliberation may be promoted by a desire to ‘get ones’ way’ while giving the illusion of accommodative responsiveness. The very principles of inclusivity and trust may be undermined by a process that is flawed because of fundamentally unbridgeable values and expectations. The marrying of formal and informal democracies may be necessary just to ensure that democracy of a particular kind still flourishes. The answer may lie in changing the role of the politician and executive officer, and by widening their scope for sharing power. The answer may also lie in recognising that deliberative and inclusionary processes must always be sensitive to procedures of accountability that in turn shape the purpose and identity of such processes, at least in their early formative stage. With confidence, born of many case studies, the nature of power presently available to the representative politician and the executive official may change from one of self-serving promotion to that of genuine partnership. Ironically, in this transition, their ultimate authority should be enhanced. There is some way to go before DIPs come of age; democracy as it is currently practised, is not ready to embrace these new procedures wholeheartedly. 4.

Some thoughts on the Environment Agency’s perspective on deliberative and inclusionary processes, by Ronan Palmer, Environment Agency

In this presentation, Ronan Palmer outlined the challenges to the Environment Agency’s current decision-making processes, and new ways in which the Agency could contribute to sustainability through more deliberative and inclusionary processes. The Agency’s remit includes new policy formulation, the development, implementation and evaluation of specific projects; and the regulation of environmental activities. In all these areas, the Agency has to make decisions which reflect the breadth of issues staff have to deal with; the wide range of economic and social groups with legitimate interests in the issues; and very different decision-making methodologies. At present, Agency staff tends to rely on quantitative decision-support techniques such as risk assessment, cost benefit analysis and social impact assessment. Qualitative approaches subsumed under `participation’ are a small but increasingly significant part of Agency practices. Ronan Palmer argued that future decision-making practices should include greater weight to DIPs, especially at the local level.

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Ronan Palmer argued that many myths about decision-making circulate among the policy community; myths such as “appraisal makes for better decisions”; “methods of appraisal are independent of values”; and “decision-making techniques are independent of the policy being appraised.” To help expose the myths, he used a conceptual map showing the unequal emphasis in analytical techniques given to natural science and economic dimensions vis-a-vis social and ethical ones. In concluding his presentation, Ronan Palmer argued that moves to sustainability require better, and more diverse kinds of information; that information has to come from both natural and social science; and that the nature of policy process needs to become more responsive and more adaptive to changing circumstances. He then threw down the gauntlet: is the goal of DIPs to make better decisions or to make a better environment? 5.

Some thoughts on English Nature’s perspective on deliberative and inclusionary processes, by Mark Felton, Strategy Manager, English Nature

Mark Felton focused on the institutional context within which English Nature (EN) works and how this relates to questions of legitimacy and participation rather than on deliberative processes per se. Nature conservation targets and the ways in which EN promotes their achievement have emerged from a variety of sources: the national Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP); national and European legislation; an integrated perspective (Natural Areas) that sees species associated with habitats as part of wider landscape systems; the view that appropriate management is more likely to deliver than mere damage limitation; an interpretation of sustainable development that stresses that environmental concerns have to become part of day to day activities and decisions, and their understanding of the different sectors with whom they have to work. Mark Felton emphasised the ways in which EN works with others and distinguished between consultation for information gathering purposes and participatory processes aimed at building consensus. EN has to work almost entirely though other organisations and individuals to achieve conservation goals, by providing them with knowledge, advice and support. These other participants are primarily other professionals - conservation organisations, land managers, regulators, developers and policy makers - and EN engages with them in various ways. For example, EN staff work with SSSI managers to achieve management agreeable to both parties; national nature conservation targets remain under review through the BAP process which involves the ‘conservation community’ and government. Involvement with the wider public comes through direct engagement (the public as neighbours, volunteers and

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visitors to National Nature Reserves), as well as through information gathering and consensus building. For example EN consulted widely on the Natural Areas framework before publishing it; local BAPs allow for local perceptions of value to influence local BAP targets. Such knowledge gives EN an understanding of how public issues and concerns might affect the potential to achieve national targets and hence how best to represent these. Deliberative and consensus building approaches have been explored through specific projects; for example for one marine SAC management plan. EN does need to be more open and involve interested and affected parties to a greater extent than it has done so far, but the way in which it does so must be appropriate to its purpose for doing so. It needs to use participatory and deliberative processes to reduce misunderstandings and to enhance the practical success of programmes. A particular challenge is the best way of involving those local people affected by contentious decisions such as tree felling, fencing, and controlling the populations of some species. To what extent should consensus be sought in such circumstances? Or should the aim of the process employed be communication to secure understanding and approval of such decisions? 6.

Commentary by Ian Christie, former Deputy Director, DEMOS.

Ian Christie divided his discussion into three areas. First, he drew attention to areas of affinity between what he saw as an area coming of age. Second, he identified a series of challenges that needed to be addressed in taking the next steps forward. Finally, he raised a series of questions to stimulate discussion from the floor. Affinities Ian Christie suggested there was a growing number of government figures and other influential people who knew that business as usual would not work, especially for environmental policy. Advisors at all levels, MPs, and local government, were beginning to internalise these arguments, even if they did not understand the complexities. This was, he said, a source for optimism. He also identified some broad overlaps between the thinking around sustainability and the present government’s agenda coalescing around notions of modernisation and a less exclusive government. The public/private sectors are now aware of people’s alienation from government, and this has been picked up through work by think tanks and opinion polls. There is a common wish list to overcome this and increase connectedness, with the result that many different sectors are hunting for new sources of trust and social capital. 7

There is an intellectual acceptance of the need for holistic government or joined up government. A recent Demos report identified a number of elements to this: • There is a need for joining up policy making across big departments and agencies to achieve common outcomes. One example of this is the social exclusion unit, although there is not yet a sustainable development unit, and environmental decision making still needs to move into the cabinet from the DETR. • There is an increase in auditing and accounting in joined up ways, shifting from a model of business accounting to policy chains. There is a resurgence of interest in anticipatory government mechanisms of foresight, which were very unfashionable in the late 1970s and 1980s. The government is beginning to take culture changes seriously and accept that attitudes have to be changed. They recognise that you cannot be neutral about some production and consumption processes, which they see as in need of remoralising e.g. family policy. Government is also exploring lesson learning processes more seriously. After 18 year of conservative rule there are no ways of learning from policy or other departments or through time. There is also the issue of the third way philosophy. Ian suggested we should look at this, as it offers opportunities for thinking that is devolutionistic, mutualistic, beyond left and right, and outcome orientated. There is a new emphasis on the local. However, local government is mistrusted and we have to seek ways of working there by degrees when trust is built back. More generally, the search is on for better processes of decision making, which can capture the heart of the public. There are already steps embedding the sustainability concept in this government, for example the sustainable cities concept. In conclusion, sustainable development and democracy need each other, and along with strengthening Local Agenda 21, they have the potential to modernise planning processes. Problems The main problem is that the finance is lagging behind. There is still a need for key breakthroughs to overcome the balkanisation of finance, and Ian would look to things like eco-taxation, local pooling of money and hypothecation. It will take 10 to 15 years to implant these ideas in Whitehall and Westminster. The problem is that there is not enough thinking in terms of accountability, budget holding and democracy. But there is a gap into which arguments can flow.

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There is a problem about what holistic accounting or auditing might look like. Business has been left out, and we need to look at developing notions of corporate rights and responsibilities as well as personal ones. This would include consultation linked to tax systems. There is a lot of anticipation, but the culture changes are not well developed. Consensus building is not encouraged in the commons, and this will not change with the first past the post system, so there is the continuing problem of how to get government to internalise these processes and understandings. There are tensions between representative and deliberative models of democracy especially in local agenda 21, which are still to be overcome. There has to be a recognition that models of deliberation cannot work at the higher levels of representative democracy, and we need to look at what we want to see at this level, including looking at ideas such as lotteries as a replacement for the House of Lords to function in a similar way to juries. There is an assumption that just because a process is more local it is more sustainable and those people taking part in it are more empowered. However, we have to recognise that we are working in a system that now goes up to the European Parliament where this language has not penetrated at all. The neighbourhood appears to be the best level at which to take these first steps. We have to understand what outcomes we want and what process will deliver them. Mayors and cabinets at every level will not give the outcome that we want. There needs to be new mechanisms for learning across a variety of arenas such as national juries, new forums, House of Lords, the Commons, local NGOs, partnerships and so forth. There are at present few mechanisms for learning good practice and transferring ideas. There are a lot of people trying to reinvent the wheel. Questions How ready are all the participants required to make this work? How ready are the policy makers to do this? How ready are the experts and advisors to give advice horizontally and participate in these kinds of processes? How ready are citizens for this? How ready are people to be empowered when, as we have seen there are problems of agency and control?

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Are we in fact looking at the right arena? As most people’s focus of control is now through consumption and not citizenship would interventions in this sphere be more appropriate? What is the role of the media in this? How can we expose citizens to this kind of information, as television and the media are empty environmental mediums? How does process fit in with people’s everyday lives? How will people find the time to do this? What venues will they use? Would we be looking to innovative kinds of ideas like job sharing and mentoring as part of the involvement process? There are acute pressures on legislative programmes over the next few years? What would you prioritise as the key steps in the immediate future? 7. Summary of main themes raised in discussions during the London Seminar There were two sessions of lively discussion from which we have distilled the following points. Points of affiliation and agreement Deliberative involvement is coming of age, with a significant number of people in positions of influence realising that business as usual will no longer work especially for environmental policy and sustainable development. Is this people’s experience? What can we learn from past policy and academic work on participatory processes? Does the current emergence of DIPs contain new theoretical propositions? Points of affiliation were evidenced in debates about overcoming alienation, working towards joined up government, remoralising certain production and consumption practices, developing anticipatory mechanisms and implementing learning processes. Are these the areas that we would see as priorities, and are there others? Challenges and questions There is an emerging tension between DIPs as a means of capturing public opinion in order to legitimise existing institutional structures and practices, and DIPs as a truly transformative and radical agenda. Is this a fair assessment of experience to date; and if so which models of DIPs are operating in what arenas? In the search for consensus are marginal groups further sidelined? What role does direct action have to play in this process?

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How ready are experts and policy makers to come up with new models of professionalism based around DIPs? What decisions go to a DIP in the first place? Over what time scale might policy and culture shifts be anticipated? What mechanisms including a more responsible media, are important in achieving this? What contribution do DIPs have to make? The comments from policy makers demonstrate that they are already working within constrained institutional landscapes, how can we both recognise and improve on this framework? Over what spatial scales are they relevant? Is the local over prioritised at the expense of the regional or national? In what ways would people see this relating to Europe? What lessons can be learned from experiences in developing countries? There are still tensions between representative and deliberative democracy. At what levels, and on what issues are these models relevant? What is required of democratic leadership in order to achieve sustainable society? What would systems of democracy have to offer? Outside of these institutional practices what spaces are there for more productive models of democracy? There is a requirement to demonstrate better outcomes of DIPs. Is the evaluation of DIPs currently being driven by existing institutional demands? In what other ways can DIPs be evaluated, and what sort of institutional change would this entail? How can the processes of DIPs be opened to be more transparent? Most decision-making processes are already deliberative; how can we, therefore, also inform our knowledge of decision-making processes that already exist? There are questions of legitimacy, representativeness and empowerment. Who would be involved and when? Why should ordinary people get involved if there is not an electoral requirement to do so? In what ways can people be empowered to participate? There are questions about incorporating government finance, corporate rights and responsibilities as well as those of citizens, into this new way of thinking? What is the new role of people in society, as both citizens and consumers? There is a general sense that our understanding of the new economic and corporate structures is lagging behind our understanding of social change. For example, what might holistic accounting or auditing look like? What do we have to learn from working with business? What other processes might be important? 11

What are the priorities over the next two years of the seminar series, and in the policy process? After the discussions today are people optimistic or pessimistic about the near future? We note that there was virtually no discussion about the environment - except for skylarks. With the inclusion of wider constituencies in the DIP process, does the language of ‘environment’ become diffuse? What other ways of talking about the environment, other than that of natural scientists, can we recognise?

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Introduction to the Norwich Seminar Tim O’Riordan CSERGE, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ E-mail: [email protected] Perspective The Norwich Seminar followed the learning outcomes and the recommendations of its predecessor London Seminar as summarised by Jacquie Burgess in the previous paper. Its primary purpose was to examine the case experience of certain DIPs in East Anglia, covering a range of issues and methodological styles. But to do this in context, it was necessary to introduce the case experiences with three papers that examined both the theory and the practice of DIPs for both a developed and a developing county point of view. Any examination of methodology has to take into account the institutional context for a DIP, as well as its particular purposes and objectives. The Norwich Seminar was not ready to create a typology of the latter, namely a means of characterising the settings and the purpose of various approaches to DIPs. This remains to be introduced at the next seminar in Lancaster in December 1999. In addition, the matter of evaluating whether a DIP was “successful” or not begs many questions. Is it possible, for example, to compare two circumstances when a DIP took place and led to a particular outcome, and where a DIP did not occur, and led to another outcome? If the two outcomes are different, how much can this be attributed to the presence or the absence of a DIP? And who is to judge that? It may well be that the participants themselves are not in a position to evaluate a DIP and a non-DIP experience with appropriate detachment. On the other hand, procedures are available, if participants are willing to digest them, namely to enable stakeholders to evaluate quite carefully and sincerely how they feel about a DIP, and what the outcome might have been had a DIP not been put into effect. So there is no limit to evaluation, just the pragmatics of how much time, thought, and co-operation is put into that process. So far there is very little in the way of practical experience to draw open, and even less of formal evaluation. While the Norwich Seminar made some progress in this area, further development can be expected for the Lancaster Seminar. Interpreting DIPs in an Evolving Civil Society In the first paper, Jane Hunt and Bron Szerszynski draw upon two of the London papers summarised in the proceeding paper, namely those by Richard Munton and his colleagues, and by Robin Grove White. They look at the 13

underlying social and political reasoning behind a more participatory society by examining the role of “civil” society. There is a loose term emanating form the liberal democratic tradition of the late 18th century, of an active and engaged networks of social actors, able to articulate values and order preferences, and hence offer opinion and discourse on social, economic and political matters. The civic realm was seen as a third sphere of public discourse, linked to the economic sphere of money and exchange, and the state sphere of government, decisions and power. One pertinent question is whether the state and capital are now so pervasive that they are intervening in the operation and role of civil society. In this context, it is important to assess just how DIPs currently operate and might evolve in the changing relationships between these three spheres. The authors point out that DIPs ought to be designed to evolve, to accommodate and to change course. This means that both methodological procedures and evaluative processes must also shift to suit the changing purpose and function. In addition, some DIPs are explicitly designed to be “plugged in” to the final decision processes, which other are just as explicitly designed to be “plugged out”. This distinction will certainly alter the purpose and timing of evaluation. But it does not follow that participants may be frustrated and disaffected. Much depends on how they perceive the organisations involving them, in terms of these organisations’ testing of sincerity, and their commitment to the well-being of civil society. The non-plugged DIPs can still be valuable for group confidence, self-learning and a sense of achievement, even if the outline does not lead to a particular decision on policy shift. For some people, simply participating is therapeutic and exciting, especially if the process is well conducted and considerately handled. Others will enter a DIP simply because it is the “only game in town” for meaningful participation, or too important in civic status terms to ignore. Hunt and Szerszynski consider four responses by participants in DIPs Motivation: people do like to get involved, especially if they are “civic” in outlook, or well integrated in existing social networks. Motivation may arise out of a sense of bonding, of being appreciated, by looking at the world differently, or from a desire to learn. Long term, confidence building contacts between facilitators and various social networks can be highly stimulating for motivating participants, who might not otherwise know they had a useful function to offer. Calculation: people can become aware of their possible influence over a decision. This can make them less willing to be “civil” and more cagey, with a propensity to be protectionist and defensive. However, much depends on the setting. If the DIP is genuinely interactive and accommodating, and “plugged

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in”, the same calculations may shift to becoming more “civic”. But if the process is “plugged in” then NIMBYism may prevail. Placation: participants may enter a DIP in a subdued mode, unwilling to be criticised, a possibly overawed by the process. Again, the relationship of “plug in” is important here, as is the role and influence of expertise. Expertise may be seen as a barrier when the DIP is not connected to a policy outcome, but they could be regarded as a valuable resource in a DIP that was designed to create an outcome. Translation: any DIP contains huge amounts of information that has to be translated for a decision-maker to absorb. This process can be distorting to some extent. So what is important is too make the process of translation itself become a matter of examination and evaluation. There is also the legitimacy of the “voice of the people” in the translation process, so the involvement of participants in the final presentation of their case will prove an important test of authenticity. The two authors concluded that there might be two “types” of DIP in terms of social theory. One, which is primarily goal achieving and instrumental, they termed “Habermasian” in respect of the attempt to make legitimate a particular purpose of taking a decision. The other they dubbed “Arendtian” in favour of the writings of Hannah Arendt who championed the cause of a learning, responding and capacity building citizenship process that is the hallmark of creative and adaptive democracy. The first is concerned with practicality and legitimacy, the second with the deliberative capabilities of a shared society, with empowerment and creative agency, and self esteem. Hunt and Szerszynski suggest that it is time to search for synergy between the two styles, and to develop methodologies and evaluative procedures with this in mind. In response Geoff Bishop argued that this distinction was not so clear cut, and that the history of participation in planning and social policy was one of making legitimate the instrumental and the experiential. He supported Hunt and Szerszynski in their quest, and looked for evaluative procedures that would test the integration of the two approaches in a holistic and ecological format. He therefore argued for processes that may bring people together so that they can be encouraged to share interests and values, and so be enabled to create common ground. The particular challenge here is to devise measures and criteria that test for this in the modern family of DIPs. It will be noted from the case studies that follow that a number of methodological approaches may assist in this integration process

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• reconnaissance surveys of the degree of trust in the promoting organisation, undertaken independently and sensitively, and involving face to face meetings and small focus groups. Such surveys should assist in the discovery of how a DIP invitation may be perceived. • process preparation, by arranging a representative selection of individuals and interests to discover what they would be looking for by way of fairness of approach and of reaching consensus, the handling of healthy and open disagreements, and the creation of possible subsequent side deals. • community network identification undertaken by both professional community development workers and by independent sensors, to discover which are the appropriate networks to look to, how they communicate, who are the “gatekeepers” of information and support, and who actually connect, but remain (at least for the initial phases) disempowered. • identification of community mentors individuals from within community networks who can all as communicators between researchers and various stakeholders and social groupings. They may need to be trained to do this. But, with careful preparation and training, such individuals may be willing to act as a lubricating bridge between the design of a given DIP and community responses to the process as it evolves. There are precedents for this in the form of community development officers, but the aim would be to get the communities themselves to nominate such people so that they become legitimate registers of inclusionary opinion. Local Environment Agency Plans (LEAPs) The work of LEAPs was initiated by UCL through a contact with the Environment Agency. The Agency itself went through its own consultative procedures to draw up a list of priorities for attention. The case study involved the New Forest area of the Southern Region of the Agency. Subsequently the team has been looking at the NW Norfolk LEAP. The aim is to create dialogue amongst representative groups of stakeholders, covering the custodial agencies and local authorities, environmental and recreational organisations, and a variety of civic groups. The ESRU methodology, termed stakeholder decision analysis (SDA), placed stakeholder deliberation within a formal decision analysis technique. The idea of such techniques is that they can assist in making choices under conditions of uncertainty and multiple objectives through systematic analysis. Many such techniques are mathematically complex and require an expert analyst, but there also exist more modest ones such as the simple form of multi-criteria analysis

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used in SDA. This involves developing a set of criteria for assessing issues, weighting each criterion, evaluating each issue against each criterion using a scoring system and calculating a total score for each issue by summing the weighted scores. With SDA the various stages are worked through by a stakeholder group during a series of workshops. Through intensive and focused discussion they collectively determine the criteria and their weights and evaluate each issue against each criterion using a qualitative scale of high, medium, low and not relevant (translated as 3, 2, 1 and 0). With expert decision analysis (where the analyst may or may not attempt to include stakeholder perspectives) the focus is on the numbers and getting them ‘right’. With SDA the focus is on collective deliberation, with the formal technique providing the structure for doing so in a way that is systematic and inclusive of different stakeholder values. Moreover, the outcome of the analysis, a list of issues prioritised according to score, does not constitute the final ‘product’. Rather, it forms the basis for the stakeholder group to agree priorities in the concluding workshop. Finally, a review of the process by the stakeholders, also carried out during this workshop, is an essential part of SDA. Although the New Forest LEAP work was experimental, the Agency, prior to the stakeholder group beginning its work, quite bravely promised to take forward the priorities that resulted, subject only to constraints such as internal funding streams. The New Forest LEAP stakeholder group’s priorities were thus incorporated into the New Forest LEAP document that subsequently went out to public consultation. The New Forest LEAP stakeholder group was thus ‘plugged in’. They were being given a real opportunity to influence how the Agency would distribute the resources available between the various issues that needed to be tackled. The question of who would be included was thus particularly pertinent. The Agency had already defined which sorts or organisations constituted their key stakeholders and which did not. The former comprise those with whom the Agency would have to work directly to implement the LEAP and those termed ‘participative others’ such as anglers whose views would be important to the formulation of LEAPs. The latter include geographically very local amenity and civic groups and the ‘general public’. The actual composition of the New Forest LEAP stakeholder group - who was invited to participate – was decided by ESRU and the Agency. Members were drawn from organisations whose remit covered the whole LEAP area or constituted a key activity within the area, and who would be able to contribute technical expertise and/or wide-ranging local knowledge. The actual group convened was thus an ‘expert’ stakeholder group and comprised representatives from the statutory agencies (including the Agency itself), the local authority, the private sector and various NGOs. 17

Issues of inclusion are, however, about more than who does the including and who is included. There are thorny issues concerning representativeness – for whom might the group be speaking? There are also questions concerning how individual members act within the group; as individuals, as representatives of particular interests, or both? According to stakeholders’ own evaluations there was a sense that they did both; although people also emphasised the benefits of hearing others’ views and gaining a wider understanding of the issues, aspects that helped them to contribute ‘better’. Deliberation was structured so as to be inclusive and non-confrontational, so that stakeholders were in the position of being able to explain their views rather than having to defend them. What emerged was a richer interpretation not only of priorities but also of the meanings and values attached to them. As these were shared, stakeholders gained a greater understanding of why particular needs were expressed. Another aspect of inclusion concerns inclusion in what? The New Forest LEAP group began work with a draft document which had been put together by external consultants for the Agency. The group was adamant that they, or at least some stakeholder group, should have been involved earlier in the process; in formulating the issues as well as evaluating and prioritising them. ESRU determined the structure of the process and because the process was an experiment the group could not be given any choice in this. Some members did question the methodology and had to be persuaded to go along with it, but by the final review most were quite complimentary about the process; feeling it to be transparent, fair and providing a mutually acceptable outcome. This in itself gave the process legitimacy, but nonetheless raises questions concerning the extent to which the structure of a DIP shapes the outcome. Would the same priorities have emerged if deliberation had been structured differently? The difficult question for DIPs is of course ‘how do you know you’ve got it right?’ It is important for the outcome to get inclusion as ‘right’ as possible but the output of any DIP will always be in some senses that of the particular participants. For the Agency the SDA methodology was just as much about broadening consultation, in terms of who and of what, as about determining priorities. It elicited deliberative interpretations not only of local environmental issues but also of how the Agency was perceived, how partnerships in taking action could be obtained, and how an action plan could be justified and explained. There is an issue of how far any involvement in LEAPs can be more “Arendtian” than “Habermasian”, to use the Lancaster terminology. This suggests that the MCA approach may have to be modified to take into account a wider array of means for soliciting preferences, such as storylines, visual appraisals, interactive models and oral histories. There is also the possibility of 18

a constructive link between intuitive means for soliciting discourse via open ended discussions and more structured approaches along “rational” lines. All of these relationships require further elaboration. The Agency may then feel more confident about embarking on longer-term commitments to DIPs. This would result in various approaches to DIPs becoming programmed into the review and decision structure that is part of the Agency policy analytical role. This includes flood defence committees at the regional and local levels, and the regional environmental policy committees (REPACs). The challenge is to incorporate DIPs into this structure so that it co-evolves, and matures into a more “Arendtian” form. This is one of the issues with which the Agency is currently grappling. For instance, it is looking for more national consistency, yet to be sensitive to local needs. It also is looking for a more flexible learning process. As an illustration, the NW Norfolk LEAPs have picked up six local issues not developed in the initial consultation phase. There is also something of a tension between the more “ideal” approaches to DIPs and the “pragmatic” style that is more characteristic of a money strapped and performance indicator driven client. Some of the points about “intelligence” preparation for assessing community network structures may be relevant here. Lessons from the South Kate Brown offered a perspective that was both refreshing and old. The refreshing part was the rich diversity of participatory techniques on offer in research and resource management work in developing countries. The old was precisely that it is work of up to 20 years vintage. Part of the reason for this relatively established effort was the realisation in the mid 1970s that “top down” policy making simply would not be accommodated in a post-colonial age. Also of significance was the pragmatic view that local users actually knew a lot about how to manage and how to communicate, and also how to create communal structures of power and agency. To ignore all that would simply have been impossible if effective outcomes were ever to be reached. An equally important driver was the shift in mood. It is being recognised that the interests and outlooks of local people should come first, that they should be their own monitors of performance, and they should be enabled to conduct their affairs, since, more of than not, official systems of delivery are either non-existent, or corrupted, or unfair, or very inefficient, or a mix of all of these. These failings are not, of course, confined to governments in the developing world. Also of importance for the introduction of these participatory tools is the degree to which the official aid agencies, including the World Bank, are conducting their business through participatory structures. So too, are the official NGOs concerned with environmental and development, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature, and the International Institute of Environment and Development.

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Indeed, almost every investment in aid or development support uses at least some of the many participatory techniques on offer. However, participatory processes in the developing world, and elsewhere, are not without their pitfalls. Some are likely to distort outcomes in favour of a few rather then the many, depending on pre-existing patterns of power. Others are not capable of delivering self-mobilisation and genuinely active participation in actual implementation. After all, many are introduced in social contexts where limited civil rights and class distinctions are culturally endemic. DIPs, no matter how well done, do not change a political culture. Third world communities, like communities the world over, are not homogeneous. They have power patterns that include and exclude, guarded by gatekeepers. Indigenous societies are often far from egalitarian and do not always care for the needy, or for the vulnerable. Indeed, economic transition and development may in themselves make the conditions of ownership and stewardship responsibility for local commons resources less capable of being managed by DIPs type approaches. Local governance may not exist in any palpable form, and democracy as it is commonly understood, may have very different ways of being played out. Civic rights and patterns of justice have national and local interpretations that might not be accepted in the North. There is clearly a need to learn more from the experiences in the South. The styles through which communities communicate and transfer knowledge and power may appear irrelevant to the untutored Northern eye. But they are not irrelevant to a creative DIP in the North. In the case study on Norwich, Richard Stowe showed how a host of social networks do exist in the Mile Cross area of Norwich, as evidenced in various social groupings and activities. Each has its own pattern of trust, bias and consolidation, and each finds ways to insulate its opinion as well as to connect to other coalitions when necessary. And each has its gatekeepers who like to maintain the authority of the group interest, and demand information inwards and outwards accordingly. So we can gain much from for this genre of research, as well as introducing the practices of community monitoring, touched on above. The Norfolk Quiet Lanes Project The quiet lanes idea is the brainchild of the Countryside Agency and the County highway authorities. The aim is to create a network of existing roads that are designed for quiet recreational pursuits, such as walking, cycling and horse riding. Relating these to a network provides local people and visitors alike with routes for pleasure and leisure. However, such roads are also highways for traffic. Some are access routes for farms and homes and businesses, some are used by touring vehicles because of their attractiveness and all may be needed

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for movement by emergency vehicles. So a quiet lane cannot be legally shut off from traffic. The issues are therefore, (1) whether such a notion is actually feasible in safety and road maintenance terms, and (2) whether local users accept the possible restrictions and user priorities explicitly required by the quiet lane designation. The Norfolk planning and transport authority found it impossible to handle this by the conventional consultative approach. Originally only parish councils were involved, and all kinds of local interests were not properly represented. So a DIP was created, using Jeff Bishop as a process designer and facilitator. The experience of the project is still being drawn on, so it is premature to offer any specific evaluation. A number of observations can be offered. • There is no explicit role for evaluation of the processes as these evolve. • A number of “everybody” meetings are to be held which involve interested parties as a whole. In the early stages of the project this gave rise to opportunities for criticism rather than for creative redesign. • So far, mostly the parish councils are involved. They have a varied history of relating to the country planning authority, not always with enthusiasm and trust. In any case parish clerks and councillors are not regularly noted for their representation of constituency interests. • The possible beneficiaries of quiet lanes have not yet been fully included into the process. This may alter the balance of support for the idea, and provide leverage for a more positive outlook on the concept. • This history of distrust and frustration, amongst certain stakeholders, for the county transport and planning authority, colours the commitment and enthusiasm to meet their proposal. This “baggage” of previous experience cannot be discounted when creating a participatory relationship. But it can lead to unnecessary antagonism, and a great sense of disillusionment on the part of hard worked officers. These people are genuinely anxious to make the DIP work, yet can get very dispirited when confronted by continual antagonism, endless rewriting of scripts, and persistent delays in making any progress. Some can, of course, look to the design of this particular DIP to see if another approach may have been more valuable. Here are some possible lessons that might be learnt.

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• Make sure you know your stakeholder sense of trust and “history” toward the image of the sponsoring agency. Trained mentors facilitated by independent analysts may undertake this. • Recognise that the originally desired outcome may not be achieved by any DIP, and prepare the sponsoring agencies for this eventuality. This was done in the Norfolk case, but it is a brave decision to take at the outset, and is not always easy to achieve in political terms. • Recognise too, that the culture of accommodative participation does not always come quickly. There are hundreds of local views, and not all can be solicited or accommodated. So the trick is to spend more time in preparation, and in the sensing out of how stakeholders develop their position, how they may be enabled to accommodate others’ views, and in building confidence in the negotiating process. This is not an arena that is ready for effective involvement if the culture of participation is still ill developed. So there is a need for more participatory “intelligence” gathering and for training of mentors. Needless to say, all this costs money (which may not appear as “payoff”), and takes inordinate amounts of time. We are still a long way off from gaining the appropriate relationship between the resources involved for a DIP, input, and the payoff in terms of tolerated outcomes that move the outcome along. • All of this possible delay and frustration cannot be guaranteed to be overcome, even by good design of a DIP. This is a critical issue both for any evaluation, and to accommodating the narrowing distinction between Habermasian and Arendtian approaches to DIPs. The whole process needs to be very carefully designed and explained. For it may result in no civic “learning”, and no follow through into other schemes. This might especially be the case if officers and politicians become disenchanted with the experience. This is where in-built evaluation should be designed to help to calibrate both the evolving purpose and the subsequent learning. Allocating Water Fairly The experience of the Lark Valley Abstractors, the subject of the case study offered by Nicole Dando, is written up in the wider context in a companion paper to this publication (see O’Riordan and Sayer, 1999). Nicole Dando’s interest lay in determining how three sets of interested parties defined fairness in water allocation in circumstances where water shortages were becoming more common. She found that each of the groups of interested abstractors – irrigators, wildlife interests, and industrialists - had different conceptions of the water right, and of the justification of their beneficial usage. The farmers

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regarded water as a commodity to gaining income for themselves and for creating local employment in the food and drink processing sectors. The industrialists saw water as vital for their profitability and for their competitive positioning. The wildlife interests regarded the water more as a stewardship right for the benefit of present wildlife and for future generations to enjoy. So the stakeholding interests facing any agreement over future water needs were indeed very different groups of people, and the interpretation of the principles of fairness varied enormously from one group to another. Yet the regulatory body had no remit to judge fairness by any moral or economic criteria. Their statutory mandate is to allocate water, to set rules of engagement, and to establish predetermined principles of abstraction varying rates and timing in times of drought. The issue relevant for this conference was how a DIP – type procedure might be developed to re-interpret all this as a process of resolving competing objectives, interpretations and socio-economically framed expectations that have been formed over the same water resource. The answer may lie in the formation of a voluntary association of abstractors who seek to create a collective interest in the water resources of the catchment. This would mark the beginning of some sort of collective water right located in a self-serving and self-policy grouping. So far, so good. But this hardly deals with the stewardship interests of the environmental groups of landowners. Nor does it take into account the interests of stakeholders not in the catchment (e.g. householders nearby who draw water from the river through a private company). Nor does it explicitly allow for the introduction of the precautionary principle. So the design of a DIP would need to follow the procedures outlined earlier. This would include obtaining a co-evolving relationship with key players, such as the water companies, the Environment Agency, the main environmental groups, the local landowners, English Nature and other statutory agencies, and the various local authorities. There would also have to be some sort of stakeholder “sensory intelligence” process to discover where all the interests lay, and how the various connecting networks operated or failed to operate. And there would also probably have to be the formation of some kind of catchment form of representative stakeholder interests to share experience, trade permits and reach agreements over the rules of allocation. For that form to work effectively, it would ideally have to be granted some sort of de facto power of allocatory right over or along the lines currently occupied solely by the Environment Agency. This would not be easy to achieve in practice unless the DIP worked to full effectiveness. Hence the need for huge amounts of careful, time consuming, and at times, frustrating, negotiations.

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Citizen Empowerment in Mile Cross Richard Stowe is a professional community development officer, who has spent seven years developing connections amongst social networks that exist but which do not necessarily link up. He showed that it is indeed possible to identify such networks, and to enable them to become interconnected through some sort of "one stop shop” for communication and empowerment. The key to his operation is his long-term involvement professionally in the community, the relative strength of their trust is his work and communication skills, and in the support by the City of Norwich for this kind of community power initiative. However, we should be wary. Not all groups are empowered, even when a key officer is in place. Nor do they reasonably wish to connect, even when there may be gains for shared interests. And it does not always follow that the community leaders are effective or representative. Because an empowerment process is in place, it does not necessarily work as intended. Again there is a case for twinning the development officer with community mentors and with ward-based politicians. The first would be trained to operate through their own networks. The second would provide a vital link to the formal system of governance and to service delivery. Even then the local authorities as specialised agencies would need to co-ordinate better if true empowerment on a collaboration basis was to be achieved. DIPs, of course, cannot do all that. But they can help to create a pathway of progressive evolution in participatory governance. On Evaluation Evaluation is a process as varied as any deliberative and inclusionary process will be. There can be no template for evaluation of a DIP, but that should not stop us from considering a variety of guidelines and principles. The purpose of evaluation is to clarify whether the objectives of the DIP have been achieved, to assess the extent to which participants gained from what was designed for them to appreciate, or, to learn from, or to create into, and to review the relationship of the DIP to its aftermath. This last point depends on the relative successfulness of the first two and would also cover the relationship to formal governance. These are all slippery slopes, and it will be seen that evaluation is not yet embedded in the DIPs scene with any authority. This suggests that the evaluative process may have three key ingredients: • assessment of how far objectives or purposes were followed

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• assessment of how much participants learned, trusted, accommodated, shared and evolved • assessment of how far the outcome was influenced by the process Some of the text that follows will cover these themes sequentially, while also recognising their interrelationships. Evaluating evaluation therefore raised a series of fundamental questions: • should it be tackled at all? • will those commissioning or participating in the process allow it to be tackled? • where should it be tackled: throughout the process; built into the process; at the end of the process? • how should it be done: by interviews; by observation; by intuition? • who should do the evaluation: in house team; external independent team; self evaluation by participants themselves? • what should be done with the evaluation outcome: plugged into the next DIP; kept to the insider track for internal assessment; publicised for external appraisal? The answer to all of these questions (and there will by many more) will clearly depend on the circumstances of the DIP. Taking a cue from the introductory essay by Hunt and Szerszynski, one of the principle issues is how far the DIP is sincerely connected to all actual decision outcomes. So we can look at three primary settings, though a fuller typology of DIPs is awaited. • Type A DIP: plugged into a specific set of decisions and policies in order to legitimate an outcome. • Type B DIP: not specifically plugged in, but a guide to a troublesome and evolving policy arena, both to legitimate and to create opportunities for more meaningful participation. • Type C DIP: not plugged into a specific outcome, but designed as a progressive learning and participatory experience for civil empowerment. This approach is beginning to be tried out in Local Agenda 21 settings. 25

Each of these will evoke a variety of participatory devices and purposes, for which a particular set of evaluative procedures would have to be put in place. • Type A DIPs might involve an assessment of the contribution to the outcome, though this may still beg the question of whether the appropriate comparator should be an equivalent process without a DIP. This comparison would be difficult if not impossible, to obtain in practice. • Type B DIPs might involve some focus on procedures, on learning, on accommodating and on approaching consensus, as all this is related to clarifying a policy area or giving confidence to policy makers as to how to proceed • Type C DIPs might include the assessment of the civic gain of participation where groups or individuals could self analyse their learning and their empowerment. Then there is the issue of when an evaluation procedure might be involved. Much depends on the willingness of the sponsor of the DIP for an evaluation, and of the participants to be evaluated. Type A:

the evaluation would be towards or at the end and by independent assessors

Type B:

the evaluation would be continuous and by the DIPs team

Type C:

the evaluation would be built into the DIP at the outset, and self assessed by participants.

The actual mechanisms of evaluation should be as varied as the settings and the players. Formal post-hoc evaluation might be best approached through interviews according to a protocol based on assessing contribution to outcome and quality of the process (fairness, openness, accommodative qualities, learning, evolving, empowering). The more continuous forms of evaluation could include all these things, but might also introduce story telling, picture drawing, conversation pieces, and humorous self-criticism. It is important that evaluation is not too “heavy” but that it is always seen to be supportive, progressive, responsive and sensitive. We need case histories of evaluation of DIPs and conflict assessments of how the formal policy settings also evaluated the process. The more varied and more widely targeted the evaluation procedures the more illuminating they will be. And always, those who undertake DIPs should be prepared for their own critical self-evaluation. This is a vital learning skill, even if no formal evaluation is 26

even undertaken. One would always like to think that the best evaluation is instructive, collective, continuous and appropriately correcting. Reference O’Riordan, T. and Sayer, M. (eds.) 1999 Agriculture, Water Supply and Climate Change Policy Analysis (PA) Series 99-05; Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), University of East Anglia and University College London.

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How was it for you? Issues and dilemmas in the evaluation of deliberative processes Jane Hunt and Bronislaw Szerszynski Centre for the Study of Environmental Change (CSEC), Lancaster University Email: [email protected] The aim of this paper is to examine some of the issues opened up by considering how DIPs might be evaluated. To this end, rather than provide premature answers, we try to open up the terrain to raise a set of questions, which may contribute to further discussion. One of the origins of this paper was in thinking about how DIPs are related to theories of civil society. Classically, civil society is thought of as a third sphere in modern societies, distinct from the realms of economy and state. The economic realm is concerned with issues of money and exchange relationships, the state with governance, decisions and power. Civil society is the autonomous realm of citizen activity in which opinions are articulated, formed and reformed, where discussion and persuasion take place, operating through the medium of discourse. Its autonomy does not mean that civil society is isolated from the realms of state and economy, but rather that it should not be dominated by them. This then suggests the question of whether DIPS are a sign of the strengthening of civil society, or whether they are part of a wider absorption of civil society into the state, which is also manifested in the use of opinion polls and focus groups in devising and testing policy, that is, where these processes are used to provide information for the state rather than being an expression of civil society. The two cases are not necessarily entirely contradictory, of course, and one can question whether it matters if DIPs operate to facilitate the absorption of civil society. The answers might be that absorption could confound the activities of the state, e.g. in decision-making, through the production of decisions that are inappropriate or faulty. Alternatively, or as well, absorption could confound civil society, by structuring and constraining the free play of opinion, by compromising the area in which people forge their sense of identity and agency, and by disciplining the actions of citizens within state constructed processes. Some examples of the sorts of things that happen within deliberative processes will help, at least with finding questions. The examples here are drawn from a variety of studies, mostly carried out at CSEC. One seemingly important distinction between the cases is the extent to which they are ‘plugged in’ to policy processes, that is, whether they are set up as discrete arrangements with no direct policy linkage or policy relevant output, or whether they form part of a policy decision process. Of the cases we draw upon, some are plugged in, some are not, and some started out as a separate process but became plugged during 29

that process. We argue here that plugged in processes, while clearly bringing benefits, may well also have their own shortcomings. Conversely, freestanding processes have their own benefits, associated with the enhancement of the public sphere and/or the individual. The first issue to consider is motivation. There is a widespread assumption that a process needs to be plugged in to motivate participation. But participants in both free-standing and plugged in processes have said that they would have participated regardless of the policy impact. They saw the process as valuable for other reasons – for bonding as a group, for a sense of being recognised, a sense of usefulness, and because participation prompted different thinking and further change (a desire to know more and to contribute more have been mentioned in this respect, with some DIPs participants pursuing this through further education). The second issue is what we call calculation. It is evident in some studies that being plugged in generated more strategic behaviour, or NIMBYism. The awareness that there is a policy audience for their deliberations seems to shape those deliberations towards protecting individual interests, at least at the local level. By contrast, being separate from the policy process, with no identifiable audience for or repercussions from their deliberations appears to provide the space in which participants can consider the public good, rather than individual interests. Thus, in their deliberations over the siting of a waste disposal site when the process was not plugged in, participants in one case identified their own area as the best site; when the process became plugged in they altered this position to arguing for an alternative site. The third issue is that of placation. We consider two related dimensions of this – information and plugged in-ness. In some cases, it appears that participants are over-awed by expert knowledge, whose authority becomes disempowering, negating, for example, local and lay knowledge. We speculate that this might be particularly acute in plugged in cases, where there is a perception of the need to engage in policy terms, to appear reasonable and produce (narrowly) rational arguments; these requirements are often built into the process. By contrast, in free-standing cases, there is some evidence that participants felt freer to contradict experts, to value their own knowledge or to express mistrust and dissension, and to deliberate in terms of a much wider rationality which incorporates participants’ understandings of social and political processes and extends to encompass the legitimacy of emotional and spiritual values. The fourth issue is that of translation. Here, the tension is between preserving the authenticity of participants’ deliberations and the institutional digestibility of outputs such as reports and recommendations. Free-standing processes

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whose audience is less well-defined arguably operate to preserve authenticity: the audience cannot shape the translation unless it is clear who they are (although of course problems of authentic translation remain in academic reporting of such cases). But the requirements of institutional digestibility – of producing a report, or recommendations or whatever which make sense to the recipients – can place the translator in a position where authenticity is compromised for the sake of digestibility. To start to make sense of this and to begin to construct evaluative criteria, we distinguish between two faces of deliberation. Jurgen Habermas sees the value of deliberation as comprising public reason, persuasion by the best argument, the production of consensus, and thus on the utility implementable and legitimate decisions. Hannah Arendt’s emphasis is different, stressing a sense of recognition and agency, of what one thinks, alongside the sense of being part of a shared society expressed through shared stories. For Habermasians, evaluative criteria will include the extent to which outcomes are do-able, both in terms of the natural and social worlds, as well considerations of their legitimacy. For Arendtians, the concern will be more with the extent to which the process generates a sense of empowerment and agency, social intelligence and selffulfilment as well as a sense of belonging to a shared society. We can see that sometimes these two faces might synergise, that the process of producing a reasoned decision might also provide the occasion for generated psychic goods. For example, a gain in confidence, in communicative ability, of a sense of citizenship can all arise and increase the capacity of the citizen to deliberate. Here we can see a virtuous circle arising where participation in deliberation that is valid in Habermasian terms can also be valid in Arendtian terms. Sometimes, however, these two faces might conflict. A number of possible issues and dilemmas thus arise, including: • Problem-solving and relationship building Can there sometimes be a conflict between the requirement for pragmatic solutions, and the value of building relationships and personal development? Can we conceive of a process that scores well in both domains? • Cultural empowerment and structural change If the cultural (Arendtian) attributes of deliberation are valued, how much value should they attract when they do not engender the structural changes, which enable their full expression? Is there an inherent conflict in disciplining the citizenry into effective deliberation, which suggests the question of whether

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becoming a (good) citizen is a gain or a loss, and whether it empowers or constrains? • Digestibility and authenticity Is the institutional digestibility of the outputs of deliberation more important than the authenticity of such outputs? Or, put another way, how might one assess ‘good’ translation, when it seems to require (at least sometimes) the synthesis of contradictions? • Ambivalence and consistency Is consistency (perhaps with a set of evaluative criteria) itself being assumed as evaluative criteria? Conversely, is the ambivalence that is often exposed by qualitative research being assumed to connote a negative? • Failure in one sphere and success in another The failure of a deliberative process can be a wider success by politicising and radicalising people – and similarly, different actors in a process are likely to experience the same deliberative process as a success or a failure. Failure could entail disillusionment with conventional political process and exploration of alternatives, or could even be irrelevant in the sense that the objective is not gained but the community develops. How can we evaluate in a context of multiple perspectives and interpretations? Whose values count? Conclusion The question of how to evaluate deliberative processes is fundamentally that of what their purposes and intentions are. Thus, we can ask whether the purpose of deliberative processes is the development of civil society, or the enhancement and facilitation of the state, or whether it is the “Habermasian” or “Arendtian” face that is most important. It is apparent that in practice, although individual institutional actors may aspire to the development of the civil society, the institutional constraints or DIPs lead them to evaluate outcomes in terms of facilitating institutional agendas (that is, of the State) by providing legitimacy, and do-able decisions; - often this success is indicated by a quiescent public, confounding any attempt at expansion of civil society. We can also ask if a trade off between conflicting criteria is valid. Looking at whether a process is plugged in or not, and what the implications of this are, shows us that neither plugged in nor free standing processes are necessarily better, that each has costs, and that evaluation is dependent on objectives. It is the question of who defines these objectives that is perhaps the key issue in evaluating deliberative processes.

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Commentary by Jeff Bishop, BDOR Limited Email: [email protected] The key to my response lies in the tension between my clear support (as an exacademic) for their disaggregating approach to issues within DIPs, and my anxiety (as a practitioner) that such an analysis could deflect attention from the exciting complexity of what I experience at the heart of DIPs processes. This then exposes a genuine tension at the centre of any debate about the evaluation of DIPs. If the world were as simple as disaggregative approaches usually imply (which is not to deny their usefulness) then evaluation would be a relatively simple matter of assessing the objectives at the outset of a process and tracking them through. From my own experience, the really interesting situations are those in which the simple input ‘ingredients’ of a specific process and its participants are transmuted when they become a ‘recipe’, and the old assumptions about win/lose (Jane and Bron’s ‘absorption’ or ‘disciplining’ for example) are replaced with the possibility of unanticipatable added value through win/win outcomes. In such fragile and complex situations, that defy most of the tracking and accounting of conventional evaluation, the very act of attempting to locate and explain the exciting transformations can become almost phenomenologically – self-defeating. I would certainly like to know far more about the specific examples from which Jane and Bron develop their analysis. This is because long experience of the relationship between social ‘research’ and social policy (where focus groups started many years ago) suggests that the either/or concept of ‘plugged in’ or ‘not plugged in’ fails to pick up the complex and evolving perceptions and aspirations of high level policy makers, policy implementers, policy developers, researchers and participants – any one of which can influence a process as it proceeds. In that same sense, I find that much of my own recent experience, though always raising as many questions as it answers, shows at least a possibility of resolving the apparent differences between Habermasian and Arendtian views so temptingly characterisable as a male emphasis on 'doing' and a female emphasis on 'being'. I find this possible in part because (in Anthony Giddens mode) I do not accept that the inevitable result of interaction between individual and state must be the domination of the former by the latter - that old chestnut about 'autonomy' again. Most importantly then, I am attracted by the authors’ suggestion that "sometimes these two faces might synergise" to create a "virtuous circle" - but

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not just "might", as if by luck. Leading-edge DIP methods, with their close attention both to structural change within organisations and policy and to the dynamics of managing multi-party groups in policy debates, make a point of tackling this aspiration head-on. I feel strongly that this is where evaluation should now focus - however challenging that might be. What is it that transforms the anticipated dynamics of any situation and creates the often quite dramatic effects of some (but by no means all) DIPs processes? Is it process design, selection of methods, sensitivity to organisational culture, political skill, inclusivity, openness ... or what? And then, of course, if it is some elusive combination of all of these, how can evaluation help not just to isolate it but also to inform its replication?

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Deliberation and inclusion in Local Environment Agency Plans: prioritising issues in the New Forest Judy Clark and Jacquie Burgess Environment and Society Research Unit University College London E-mail: [email protected] Here we describe a structured decision making process developed by the Environment and Society Research Unit (ESRU) at University College London, and analyse the nature of deliberation and inclusion within it. The aim of the process, provisionally termed stakeholder decision analysis (SDA), is to enable participants to reach a mutually acceptable outcome in cases where there is a need to determine priorities between issues or policies. It was developed initially for the Environment Agency as a way of prioritising the issues in Local Environment Agency Plans (LEAP) and piloted in the New Forest in Hampshire during the last three months of 1997. The project is described in detail in the two Environment Agency Research Reports (W114, 1998 and W4/W4-002/1, 1998). Since then we have developed and modified the process in other projects, including the States of Jersey Local Agenda 21 and the Severn Estuary Strategy. LEAPs are integrated local catchment management plans which identify, assess and prioritise actions and projects (both internal and external) for tackling local environmental issues related to the Environment Agency's functions but falling outside of its statutory obligations. The Agency produces a consultation document for each LEAP, followed by an Action Plan. ESRU entered the LEAP process after the New Forest LEAP consultation document had been compiled. Among other things this document identified and briefly described 22 ‘main’ and 15 ‘subsidiary’ issues which the Agency could address (Robert Long Consultancy Ltd, 1997). Essentially these 37 issues comprised a ‘wish list’ as the Agency would not have the resources to tackle all of them during the fiveyear lifespan of a LEAP. ESRU’s brief was to develop a method for prioritising issues within LEAPs [and] to improve the consultation and involvement process of key stakeholders within a LEAP area by providing the Agency with a consensus and coalition building methodology which recognis[ed] the constraints of limited resources (Environment Agency, 1998a, p. 4). The SDA process combines a deliberative procedure with a systematic decision analysis technique. The Agency wanted to involve key stakeholders and our experience suggested that a discursive and interactive group process would be an effective way to do this. Decision analysis seems to have been much less used in this context. Von Winterfeldt (1992, 321) describes it as

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A systematic procedure to assist decision-makers in making wise choices in the presence of uncertainty and multiple objectives. The methodology of decision analysis consists of decomposing a decision problem into its factual and value parts, analyzing the factual parts as probability problems, analyzing the value parts as utility problems, and reaggregating both by using explicitly stated and logical principles of probability and utility theory. Formal probability and utility theory are highly complex mathematical techniques and so it is unsurprising that von Winterfeldt's own 'multiple stakeholder approach' requires the analyst to combine expert knowledge and public values by gathering, analysing and integrating a range of views. The principle, though, remains: that decomposing the decision into analysis of options, issues or policies in terms of their likely outcomes and analysis of values in terms of their importance to those holding them may effectively inform decisions. Moreover, the analytical tools used need not be complex because, as Rosenhead (1989, 114) argues, a participatory process offsets the need for complex analytical techniques. Precisely because of this activation of social interaction and judgement, methods do not need to be so complex. This process is also self-reinforcing. One can have a complex technology and a minimal social process; or one can have a rich social process and a correspondingly modest technology. The 'modest technology' employed in SDA is a mathematically simple form of multi criteria analysis (MCA) involving the summation of weighted scores. It works as outlined in Figure 1. A number of criteria are developed and each is weighted according to its relative importance. Each issue is scored against each criterion and its score multiplied by the weight for that criterion. Weighted scores are summed for each issue to give a final score. The higher the score, the higher the priority that should be given to that issue. But rather than being carried out by the analyst as is usual with multi criteria approaches, the analysis is carried out by a group in a deliberative manner. Group members work collaboratively to determine what the criteria shall be, and to assess each issue against each criterion. The results of the analysis are not intended to be binding, but simply to be used by the group to inform their decision as to priorities. The tool is subservient to the group, not the other way around. The group convened for the New Forest LEAP process comprised 14 individuals representing a variety of interests and organisations, including a representative from the Environment Agency itself, as shown in Table 1. The sequence of activities followed by the group, over the course of four workshops,

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is summarised in Table 2. The workshops were run by an ESRU team according to a pre-planned schedule, albeit one flexible enough to accommodate the group’s needs; for example, if the group wished to discuss issues not anticipated by the team. The tasks were structured so as to focus group discussion while at the same time giving each group member maximum opportunity to question, challenge, learn and contribute to the identification of issues, development of criteria and assessment of issues against criteria. Participants worked both as a whole group and in smaller units depending on the particular task. Visual methods were used to record the results of every stage and sub-stage of the process. This provided an effective way of communicating the results of the work of smaller units to the whole group during a workshop as well as an accurate summary of what had been achieved during a workshop. In addition, notes were taken by participant observers and all discussion was recorded. Besides providing accurate data for analysis these records ensured that the feedback from each workshop to the participants reflected the outcomes as accurately as possible. Finally, the whole process was reviewed by the group during the final workshop and members were also asked to complete an individual evaluation. Interactive deliberation takes place primarily in three contexts: the development of the criteria, the evaluation of issues against the criteria, and agreement over the final list of priorities. Taking the determination of the criteria as an example, each member was first asked to identify some criteria to bring to the second workshop. In the workshop people discussed and progressively refined these criteria, working first in matched pairs, then in small groups, and finally as a whole group. At the outset a criterion had been defined as a value-based standard against which each issue could be assessed and people were asked to make their value judgements explicit and to express criteria in the form 'to what extent' so that their 'measurability' could be clarified (see Table 3). At this stage participants were not asked to reach agreement as to which criteria should be used and what their relative importance was. All they had to do was agree that a criterion was valid in the sense that it could be used to evaluate an issue. People developed criteria in their own ways but the twin devices of making value-judgements explicit and asking people to consider the ‘measurability’ of criteria helped to focus deliberation. Creativity and collaboration were promoted by the reassurance that all criteria would count for something and the emphasis on making the value judgements explicit, something particularly important in making meanings clear and helping people to see quickly where there was agreement and where there was difference. Participants did not have to agree to endorse others’ values. They have to agree to the validity of the criteria that they put forward. Thus, they could focus on appreciating, or teasing out, their own and others’ views, and on working out similarities and differences. But the

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relative lack of conflict was not because people were not willing to be disagreeable; views were often expressed trenchantly, especially in the groups. Rather, conflict was defused because people were meeting in a forum where they were not forced to defend their interests in an adversarial way. Putting different interests together in this situation not only made for productive discussion but also meant that the underlying politics could be acknowledged without getting in the way. Thus the process enabled people who might otherwise have been locked in fierce opposition to move out of their trenches, rather than digging them in. The atmosphere was one of co-operation rather than confrontation, with people listening to others as well as expounding their own views, and actively seeking new expressions of language and more creative ways to frame value judgements. The group could also have collectively determined the weight given each criterion, but because time was short weighting was done individually and then aggregated by ESRU to produce a 'group' weighting (see Table 3). Combining scores determined in the third workshop with these weights produced a prioritised list of issues for the fourth workshop. Following discussion and some re-evaluation the group accepted the priority as logical given the collective application of the technique, and accepted the final rankings because they respected the process. Keeping the promise made to the group at the start of the process, the Environment Agency produced an Action Plan, which by and large reflected the stakeholder priorities. References Environment Agency (1998a) Prioritising the Issues In Local Environment Agency Plans through Consensus Building with Stakeholder Groups (Technical Report W114). Environment Agency, Bristol Environment Agency (1998b) Prioritising the Issues In Local Environment Agency Plans through Consensus Building with Stakeholder Groups (Project Record W4/W4002/1). Environment Agency, Bristol Environment Agency (1999) New Forest Local Environment Agency Plan. Environment Agency, Bristol. Robert Long Consultancy Ltd (1997) Local Environment Agency Plan: New Forest Consultation Report (first draft), Environment Agency, Winchester Rosenhead, J. (1989) Introduction: Old and New Paradigms of Analysis. In J. Rosenhead, (ed) Rational Analysis for a Problematic World: Problem Structuring Methods for Complexity, Uncertainty and Conflict. Wiley, Chichester, 1-20. Winterfeldt, D. von (1992) Expert knowledge and public values in risk management: the role of decision analysis. In S. Krimsky and D. Golding (eds) Social Theories of Risk. Praeger, Westport and London, 321-342.

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Figure 1: Stages in multi criteria analysis Stage 1: The stakeholder group evaluates each issue against each criterion, using a qualitative scale of high, medium, low and not relevant, with positive or negative evaluations as relevant.

Criterion 1 Criterion 2 Criterion 3

Issue 1 HIGH HIGH LOW

Issue 2 MEDIUM LOW MEDIUM

Issue 3 HIGH LOW NOT RELEVANT

Stage 2: The facilitating team substitutes scores for the group's qualitative assessments

Criterion 1 Criterion 2 Criterion 3

Issue 1 3 3 1

Issue 2 2 1 2

Issue 3 3 1 0

Stage 3: The facilitating team calculates a total score for each issue The weighted score for each issue is obtained by multiplying the score given that issue (stage 2) by the weight given to the criterion against which it is scored. The total score for each issue is calculated by summing the weighted scores for that issue. The scores determine the rank order. In this example the order of priority is Issue 1, Issue 3, Issue 2

Criterion 1 (weight 10) Criterion 2 (weight 5) Criterion 3 (weight 3) TOTAL

Issue 1

Issue 2

Issue 3

10 x 3 = 30

10 x 2 = 20

10 x 3 = 30

5 x 3 = 15

5x1=5

5x1=5

3x1=3

3x2=6

3x0=0

48

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The stakeholder group develops and weights the criteria to be used and then assesses each issue against each criterion. Number crunching is carried out by the facilitating team using a spreadsheet.

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Table 1: Interests and organisations represented in the New Forest LEAP stakeholder group Sector

Stakeholder interest

Stakeholder organisation(s)

Public

Environmental planning

New Forest District Council (officer)

Quality of life

New Forest District Council (member)

Nature conservation

English Nature

Environmental protection

Environment Agency (Southern Region)

Nature conservation

RSPB (Southern Region) Hampshire Wildlife Trust

Landscape and countryside

Hampshire CPRE New Forest Association

Environment

New Forest Friends of the Earth

Recreation: freshwater fishing

Brockenhurst Manor Fly Fishing Club

Recreation: sailing

Calshot Sailing Club Southampton Water Sailing Association

Agriculture and rural issues

National Farmers Union (Hampshire) Country Landowners Association (Hampshire)

Common land

Commoners Defence Association

Chemical industry

Exxon Chemical

Water industry

Southern Water

Ports

Associated British Ports

Voluntary

Private

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Table 2:

The workshop sequence

Prior to Workshop 1 To identify costs, benefits and risks of issues in the (individuals) LEAP of interest to the group member and those whom he or she was representing. Workshop 1 (group)

To review the issues in the New Forest LEAP and produce a comprehensive, inclusive list of the costs, benefits and risks associated with the issues proposed in the New Forest LEAP.

Prior to Workshop 2 To think about criteria against which the issues in the (individuals) New Forest LEAP might be assessed. Workshop 2 (group)

To produce an inclusive list of criteria for assessing the issues in the New Forest LEAP by deliberating criteria suggested by group members and by the facilitating team.

Prior to Workshop 3 To score each criterion on the list produced in (individuals) workshop 2 on a scale of 0 to 100. Workshop 3 (group)

To evaluate each of the issues against each of the 10 criteria in the final list.

Prior to Workshop 4 To review the list of issues ranked in priority groups (individuals) according to the results of the MCA Workshop 4 (group)

To review the ranked issues list as a group and to review the process.

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Table 3:

Final list of criteria, with weights, produced by the New Forest LEAP grou

CODE

A

WEIGHT

14. 09

C

12. 77

F

12. 17

D

B

10. 68

10. 93

CRITERION To what extent is resolution of this issue a legal requirement? To what extent would tackling this issue benefit non-human species and habitats? To what extent would tackling this issue maintain the unique status/ international importance of the New Forest? To what extent is the problem identified in this issue likely to get worse? To what extent would tackling this issue require the Environment Agency to work in partnership with other agencies?

UNDERLYING VALUE

Legal obligations should be met.

Biodiversity should be protected ENVIRONMENT AGENCY sh UK Biodiversity Action Plan in policy. The Environment Agency’s actio the ‘New Forestness’ of the area

Issues that are likely to get wors sooner rather than later; in partic should be given to issues where irreversible decline. The Environment Agency should with other organisations within a strategic approach.

Table 3:

G

K

H

E

M

continued

9. 22

8. 69

7. 62

7. 42

6. 43

To what extent would tackling this issue benefit public health ? To what extent is the issue well understood scientifically?

Public health should be safeguar life is unacceptable.

To what extent would tackling this issue benefit the quality of life for residents in the LEAP area? To what extent would tackling this issue benefit the local economy? To what extent are actions relating to this issue likely to be affected by potential future legislation?

Improving amenity and redressin given high priority.

Priority should be given to tackl understood.

Maintaining/ creating employme high priority.

Future legislation will have to be potential impact should be consi

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What can the North learn from the South? Deliberative inclusionary processes and development studies Katrina Brown School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia Email: [email protected] The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the way in which development studies have approached, conceptualised and critiqued DIPs and to consider some of the experiences of implementing DIPs in development projects in countries of the so-called ‘South’. It is important to note that there is no one discipline called development studies; the field of development studies is both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. There is no overarching theory or paradigm; however, there is a common interest in seeking to understand the processes of social, economic and environmental change with a special emphasis on poor countries in the South. But it is hard to make a generalisation, especially about countries and cultures as diverse as those in the South and apply them to the North. However it is possible to identify some of the approaches development studies has taken to address critical issues for DIPs and to illustrate this with some examples from develop-ing countries. In development studies there has long been an interest in issues of democracy and participation in both research and development practice. For more than two decades concepts of community, decentralisation and participation have been central to the discourse of development. There are three issues that need to be explored before the discussion. First is the distinction between North and South. Countries cannot be classified so simply, but we use these terms as shorthand to distinguish rich from poor; we will discuss some of the particular characteristics of poor countries and their implications for DIPs. Second, in development there is an overlap between the use of DIPs in environmental decision making and as part of a research process. The idea of action research has a long history in development studies; in fact the participatory approaches to research have been critical in gaining acceptance for DIPs in decision-making and environmental management (Chambers, 1994a & b). Third, the objectives of DIPs in terms of instrumentalist or efficiency roles versus fairness and democracy concerns are quite stark in development situations. This relates to critical issues of process and outcome considerations.

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The term DIP is rarely mentioned in development studies. However, participation has become central to current notions of development and to the interventions of development agencies (White, 1996; Michener, 1999). Participation has a long and interesting lineage in development studies. On the one hand this relates to a tradition stemming from the 1960s which views selfmobilisation and empowerment as key pre-requisites to development and to fuelling social change; and on the other hand, to integrated development and basic needs approaches from the 1970s. In some ways these approaches represent the process versus outcome dimensions of DIPs. Most development agencies, ranging from grassroots NGOs to multi-national organisations such as the World Bank, advocate participatory approaches. Increasingly this is also true of the conservation agencies too. The World Bank has been at the forefront of promoting participation in social development, and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has pioneered stakeholder approaches. Since the late 1980s approaches allied to DIPs have been increasingly employed in environmental management. Two examples are Joint Forest management in India and Nepal, and in wildlife utilisation and conservation in Southern Africa. The community management of forest resources has been pioneered in India and Nepal. Joint forest management, focused on user groups, has spread throughout these countries and for the most part these approaches are viewed as successful, in both welfare and environmental terms, particularly in comparison to previous state management (Poffenberger, 1994; Saxena, 1997; Banerjee, 1999). The co-management of wildlife resources in Southern Africa was initiated in Zimbabwe in the CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management of Indigenous Resources) programme (Child, 1993; Metcalfe, 1994). Such projects have now spread throughout Zimbabwe and to other African countries including Zambia, Namibia and Botswana. They involve and explicit transfer of rights to natural resources from the state and conservation agencies to local communities. They have developed innovative institutional and decision making mechanisms which seek to involve local people in active management of resources and to receive benefits from that management. In some ways, because of the explicit rights transfer, they go further than many of the DIPs approaches in the North do at present. Recent years have also seen an emerging critique of participation as presented as a panacea for development. There are three key areas of criticism. The first questions what constitutes meaningful participation; the extent to which

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participation is seen as way of achieving “development on the cheap”, linked to the retreat of the State and structural adjustment policies in the late 1980s; or whether it is part of a democratisation and empowerment process. Michel Pimbert and Jules Pretty (1997, 309) have developed a classification of different forms of participation applied to conservation and environmental management (see also IIED, 1994). A second area of criticism, and one which appears to have been little addressed in the North, are assumptions made about communities as homogenous groups of people with shared interests. Experience shows communities are often nonegalitarian, made up of actors with multiple roles and interest. In particular outsiders may romanticise ‘communities’ in the South, assuming equity and sustainable environmental management practices (see IDS Bulletin, 1997; Brosius et al., 1998; Agrawal and Gibson, 1999). In addition participatory approaches have been widely criticised for not taking account of power and politics, so that whilst participation may have the potential to challenge patterns of dominance it is often a means by which existing power relations can become entrenched and reproduced (White, 1996; Michener, 1999). There is a need explicitly to recognise different interest in participation and the dynamics of these interests and their interaction with the form and function of participation. Sarah White’s analysis (White, 1996) is especially helpful in illuminating the political and dynamic dimensions of participation. Such criticisms are not just confined to rarefied academic discussions. A recent conference at Manchester addressing the “Tyranny of Participation” as was attended by academics and researchers, and development practitioners from a wide range of agencies and countries. A discussion of DIPs in the South needs to consider what is special or particular about poorer countries and the implications for DIPs. I suggest that there are four areas where there may be distinctions – but, once again, I hesitate to overgeneralise. The first characteristic concerns the kinds of institutions, but governmental and non-governmental. In many developing countries there is no functioning state apparatus, particularly in rural areas. Government administration and service provision is often very poorly developed, as is infrastructure. This situation was severely exacerbated in many countries (especially sub Saharan Africa) as a result of economic and political manifestations of Structural Adjustment. But the ‘retreat of the State’ has been further promoted by neo-liberal agendas of development agencies and multi-lateral organisations during the 1990s.

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Second, development is often concerned with meeting material objectives – establishing water supplies, building physical infrastructure, and thus on the surface at least, is more focused on instrumentalist aspects rather than democracy or fairness. However, there is compelling evidence (Brown and Rosendo, 1999) that economic and political aspects are closely linked and that empowerment is achieved through economic independence and legal rights. Third, development interventions often involve outsiders and it is often people from outside of the country and local culture who facilitate participation and DIPs. This means that a range of cultural and other biases may exist. However there are also advantages; outsiders may help to overcome embedded biases and gain access to marginalised groups within societies in a way that insider cannot. But this undoubtedly has implications for the techniques employed in, and outcomes of, DIPs. Fourth, much development intervention is centred on projects, which tend to be short term, relatively intensive and goal orientated. These characteristics may not be conducive to building meaningful DIPs. For example, goals tend to be tangible, material and quantifiable. But this aspect is changing; social capital is now the buzzword and capacity building and institutional strengthening are now regarded as important primary objectives rather than secondary benefits. What can the North potentially learn from the South? First, experience in development begs questions of inclusion in DIPs. Who is included in these processes, and how are they distinguished in terms of gender, age, ethnicity and other characteristics? The field of development studies has long been concerned with such questions of exclusion and inclusion and equity of access. What are people being included in? The lack of robust government institutional frameworks in many developing countries has resulted in the development of some of the most effective social movements. In many countries DIPs are not about getting people involved in decision making with government, it is all about creating a functional civil society. Second, development studies has identified mechanisms which exclude certain social groups from development projects and benefits. There are thus many useful insights into inclusionary processes. Robert Chambers’ book Rural Development - Putting the Last First in 1983 and subsequent work has provided guidance in this area, advocating a reversal of professionalism. The exploration of innovative institutions and fora has been explored in many aspects of development studies. Development studies makes very explicit consideration of the roles of outsiders, researchers and activists in DIPs. It also has considered the role of alliances and partnerships between communities, government and non-governmental 48

organisations and private sector. This is especially the case in environmental management, for example in CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe and the Rubber Tappers movement in Amazonia. Finally, there are increasing partnerships and collaborations between the North and South and more opportunities than ever for linking social movement and civil society in the South and North. Campaigns on GM crops, dams and other issues have illustrated this. References Agarwal, A. and C. Gibson (1999). Enchantment and disenchantment: the role of community in natural resource conservation. World Development 27(4), 629-649. Banerjee, A.K. (1999). Community forestry development in India. In M. Palo and J. Uusivuori (eds.) World Forests, Society and Environment. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 196203. Brosius, J. P., Tsing, A.L. et al. (1998). Representing communities: histories and politics of community-based natural resource management. Society and Natural Resources 11, 157-168. Brown, K. and Rosendo, S. (1999). Environmentalists, rubber tappers and empowerment: The political and economic dimensions of Extractive Reserves. Development and Change (forthcoming). IDS Bulletin (1997). Community based sustainable development: consensus or conflict? IDS Bulletin Special issue 28(4). Chambers, R. (1983). Rural Development: Putting the Last First. Longman, Harlow. Chambers, R. (1994a). The origins and practice of participatory appraisal. World Development 22(7), 953-969. Chambers, R. (1994b). Participatory rural appraisal (PRA): challenges, potentials and pitfalls. World Development 22(10), 1437-1454. Child, B. (1993). Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE Programme: using the high value of wildlife recreation to revolutionise natural resource management in communal areas. Commonwealth Forestry Review 72(4), 284-296. IIED (1994). Whose Eden? An Overview of Community Approaches to Wildlife Management. International Institute for Environment and Development, London. Metcalfe, S. (1994). The Zimbabwe Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources. In D. Western, R.M. Wright and S.C. Strum (eds.), Natural Connections: Perspectives in Community Based Conservation. Island Press, Washington DC, 161-192.

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Michener, V. (1998). The participatory approach: contradiction and co-option in Burkina Faso. World Development 26(12), 2105-2118. Pimbert, M. and Pretty, J. (1997). Parks, people and professionals: putting 'participation' into protected area management. In K. Ghimire and M.P. Pimbert (eds.) Social Change and Conservation. Earthscan Publications, London, 143-162. Poffenberger, M. (1994). The resurgence of community forest management in eastern India. In D. Western, R.M. Wright and S.C. Strum. (eds.) Natural Connections: Perspectives in Community-based Conservation. Island Press, Washington, DC, 5379. Saxena, N. C. (1997). The saga of participatory forest management in India. CIFOR Special Report, Bogur, Indonesia White, S. (1996). Depoliticising development: the uses and abuses of participation. Development in Practice 6(1), 6-15.

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Public involvement in the Norfolk Quiet Lanes Pilot Project Rosie Ferguson and Anna Graves Norfolk Planning and Transport Department, Norfolk County Council Introduction The aim of the Norfolk Quiet Lanes project is to provide a network of routes within a designated pilot area for walkers, cyclists and horse riders. These will link rural villages to each other and to nearby towns, offering an alternative to the car for both local people and visitors. Motorised vehicles will not be barred from the network, but will be encouraged to use alternative routes where possible and to drive with extra consideration if they have to use a Quiet Lane. Norfolk Quiet Lanes are one of 3 national pilot schemes. Sponsored by the Countryside Agency and Norfolk County Council, the project seeks to protect some of the county’s most unspoilt rural lanes from the degradation caused by increasing traffic pressure. The pilot area is in the east of the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). It was chosen because of the large number of rural lanes and its relative quietness in terms of visitors. Engaging the Public The importance of community involvement was recognised early on, although unfortunately not before a consultation leaflet had been circulated which inadvertently gave the public - all too ready to be suspicious - the impression that the network had already been decided! This did cause problems and it was an uphill struggle for the project team to convince people that a network would not be imposed against their wishes. The Environment Council was engaged to develop and manage a process in which the views of local people, as well as relevant organisations, could genuinely be heard and a dialogue developed, allowing people to explore their concerns and participate in the challenge of finding solutions. Working closely with the co-ordinating group, an outline process was designed. This is presented as Figure 2. This was refined and developed in response to feedback and experience as the process continued. Figure 2 represents a model of the public engagement process that was subsequently followed. There are a number of different components to this, including facilitator training. This has not only provided a cost effective 51

resource for this project, but has furnished Norfolk County Council officers with skills which will be helpful in subsequent work. It was important to involve a wide range of people and organisations ranging from essential services, local businesses and recreational groups, to farmers and, most importantly, local inhabitants. Two different types of event were held: Everybody meetings - so called because representatives from every different interest that the co-ordinating group could think of were invited (including representatives from each parish council), and community events, aimed especially at local people. Everybody meeting 1 Approximately 150 people were invited to this first meeting and 73 attended. Its purpose was to gain a wide sense of ownership for the public engagement process and to introduce people to the Quiet Lanes idea. It was also important to undo some of the myths, especially the fear that there would be blanket road closures and the conviction that the network was a fait accompli (and therefore any consultation merely window dressing)! The meeting was held in the morning and participants were invited to stay for lunch, giving informal opportunities for people to discuss the project further. Less than a quarter of the time was spent on presentations, the rest being devoted to small group discussion and feedback sessions. Jeff Bishop from the Environment Council began by outlining the aims of the process and the shape it would take, stressing that openness and flexibility were fundamental, and that the project would not proceed if there was not public support for it. Anna Graves, Quiet Lanes Project Manager, followed, talking about the Quiet Lanes concept and how it could be implemented. Participants then divided into prearranged mixed interest groups, each of which was led by one of the newly trained facilitators. Their job was to ensure that everyone had a chance to speak and that all views were recorded either on postits or flip charts. The purpose of the small group discussions was to allow people to explore the issues, to widen understanding and to gauge the level of support for the initiative. Comments were recorded on flip charts and the main points fed back to everyone after each small group session. All comments, questions and observations, from both the small group and plenary sessions, were transcribed and subsequently circulated to participants. Quite a number of people were sceptical about whether the project could work or was worthwhile. However by the end of the meeting a show of hands indicated that approximately eighty percent of participants were in favour of

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proceeding with the community events, and with the Quiet Lanes project if feedback from the community events was favourable. Community Events The community events were widely publicised by posters and a leaflet drop to every household in the area. Over an eight week period fourteen were held, one in each parish in the pilot area. These were drop-in sessions which took place in the evening to allow as many people as possible to attend. Their purpose was to give and to gain information and, importantly, to build trust and rapport with local people. The community events were deliberately informal and very participatory, allowing people to browse through the display material and discuss the project with one another as well as with project staff. Figure 3 outlines their lay-out, while Figure 4 illustrates each component. Staff engaged as much as possible on a one to one basis with participants, asking for their views about the area, their concerns about the Quiet Lanes project and their ideas about how the project could work. Participants were encouraged to write their comments on postits and these were all displayed and subsequently recorded. In addition a large tabletop map of their area was available and they were asked to place red or blue dots on the roads where they either walked or drove. This gave a very immediate visual impression of how each community used its road network, but it was also a great stimulus for discussion and chat as people worked out where their own homes where and where they regularly went. Before they left participants were asked to complete a questionnaire showing which if any lanes in the area they thought could become Quiet Lanes. Maps and questionnaires for all of the other parishes were provided at each meeting, so that people who were unable to attend the meeting in their own parish could come to any of the others. As well as talking with project staff, participants were also able to learn more about Quiet Lanes from a series of display boards, which told people about the concept and gave a visual indication of some of the different ways it could be implemented. The issues raised on these boards reflected some of the comments made at the ‘everybody’meeting and were effective in stimulating discussion. Project staff were available throughout to discuss particular concerns and give any further information. In total over 300 people attended these meetings and the overwhelming majority was in favour of the Quiet Lanes project, although in many cases not without reservations.

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A great deal of information was gathered from the community events about people’s patterns of use and preferences. This information, together with the engineering judgement of the project team and the results of traffic surveys (which included automated and manual vehicle counts at various locations in the pilot area) formed the basis of the draft network which was presented at everybody meeting 2. Everybody Meeting 2 Everybody meeting 2 was attended by broadly the same people as everybody meeting 1, and its format was similar; short presentations and plenty of time for small group discussion. The initial objective was to report back on the community events and, on the strength of the support from them, to gain agreement to ‘give it a go’ (i.e. to take the project a stage further, whilst acknowledging that there are still important outstanding issues to be considered). Having done this, the purpose was to present a draft network and to look at some of the outstanding issues and how they could be resolved. A comprehensive written report on all aspects of the community events, together with data from the traffic surveys in the pilot area, was distributed to participants and this was carefully covered in a presentation given by Anna Graves. This gave participants evidence of the support for Quiet Lanes and a very clear insight into how the draft network had been derived. Following this, outstanding issues and possible solutions were considered in small group work. As before, everything was recorded and reported back to participants. The atmosphere of this meeting was remarkably positive and constructive. The support from the community meetings gave a mandate to proceed and the facilitators were briefed to build on this momentum by framing the outstanding issues as challenges to be worked on together, rather than insurmountable barriers. Participants seemed generally to be comfortable with this. One farmer who had expressed very strongly his opposition to the Quiet Lanes project at several of the community meetings was particularly notable. With the evidence of the strength of local support for Quiet Lanes before him, together with an opportunity for him to continue to be involved and influence the process, he was able to shift his position and to explore more positively his very real concerns about Quiet Lanes, and to enter into a dialogue about how those concerns could be resolved. This kind of constructive engagement is an important outcome, and will be valuable as the Quiet Lanes project moves into an implementation phase. The amount of work that had been put into the public engagement process was noticed and appreciated by a number of participants. Furthermore, the fullness

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of the report seemed to engender trust and confidence. On leaving participants were asked to evaluate the process by simply placing a tick on a linear scale. Figure 5 records where people placed their ticks. The evidence speaks for itself and is backed up by comments such as the ones which follow:Excellent presentation giving everyone a chance to have an input One of the best public consultation processes I have ever attended Exciting - interesting - energetic. An effective way of getting information and promoting issues. The majority of people wanted to continue to be involved with the Quiet Lanes project and had high expectations about this being possible. The framework set out in Figure 6 reflects this, and aims to balance inclusivity with efficient implementation. This will not be easy to achieve. Comments 1.

In conjunction with the Environment Council a great deal of officer time was spent on the design of the process. This effort seemed inordinate at the time, but with hindsight was well spent. A number of pitfalls were avoided and the community events especially seemed very robust, their design coping even when the number of visitors exceeded the capacity of staff to meet and greet each participant.

2.

The process, whilst being carefully thought out, was also a learning experience for everyone involved (participants included - most were not used to having to work in groups and write on postits!). It had the flexibility both in terms of design and attitude to respond and adapt to feedback as the process evolved. This was important and changes were made, especially to the design and layout of the community events after everybody meeting 1.

3.

Young people are a difficult group to engage and, predictably, they were under-represented at the community events. Work with schools in the area is being planned as a means of overcoming this.

4.

The community events were particularly extravagant in terms of officer time. At least three, usually four officers were present at each meeting. These lasted from 18.30 to 21.30. The amount of administrative back up needed was also very large.

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5.

It was recognised that the success of the Quiet Lanes project is very much dependent on winning the hearts and minds of local people. This being so the amount of effort put into consultation was considered to be worthwhile. Furthermore, in this case adequate funding was available, as the project is a national pilot. However, it is unlikely that local authorities could ordinarily devote such a large amount of staff time or cash without additional financial support. Also this type of approach would not necessarily be suitable or financially justifiable for ‘day to day’ highways projects.

6.

Some parish councils were not supportive of the community meetings. This may be because they judged them to undermine their role as elected representatives. Individuals attending the community events were generally more supportive of the project than their parish councils.

7.

There was a critical period after the first everybody meeting when the morale of staff was very low. A great deal of work and thought had gone into trying to get the process right and instead of seeing any reward for this, staff found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place; facing scepticism from within the County about this innovative, and the amazingly time and energy consuming way of working, as well as the hostility from the public who, given a real opportunity to be involved, seemed to want to do nothing except complain!

8.

The thoroughness of the public engagement process was recognised (and appreciated) by participants at everybody meeting 2 and high expectations have been raised about future involvement. Keeping everyone involved and on board will require a continuing level of sincere and time consuming commitment. In addition, there will have to be and a great deal of careful balancing to ensure that the project moves efficiently towards implementation whilst at the same time remaining open, inclusive and responsive to the views of the local community.

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Figure 2: Quiet Lanes Public Engagement Model

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Figure 3: Quiet Lanes Community Events Suggested Approximate Floor Layout

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Figure 4: Quiet Lanes Community Events

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Figure 5: Evaluation of Process Do you now feel that this will be a genuine ‘pilot’ with local input?

Absolutely not

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Has this way of working been beneficial?

Not at all

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60

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Figure 6: Quiet Lanes Public Engagement Model: Implementation of Pilot Project

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Searching for fairness: a case study of water resources management in the Lark Valley, Suffolk1 Dr Nicole Dando Department of Geography, University College London, WC1E 6BT Email: [email protected] Introduction This paper describes a study of different ideas regarding the meaning of fair water regulation in a small rural catchment in East Anglia. The implications for conflict over water regulation and for the National River Authority’s regulatory and policy-making practices were explored2. Three themes that emerged from the research as significant to ideas of fair water resources management were: • notions of what water is • attitudes to uncertainty • expectations of the role of the regulator. Findings will be discussed here according to the experiences and perceptions of five main stakeholder groups in the Lark Valley. They were the NRA (the institution and the staff), farmers, environmentalists, the water company and an industrial user. Why is fairness important? First, equity is a fundamental principle of the sustainability paradigm, which has been almost globally adopted as a framework for model natural resources management. Second, are the social psychological and philosophical arguments that social order and co-operation requires that policies are considered fair and just. People want the sacrifices that they make to be justified in relation to the sacrifices that others are making (Wenz, 1988, 21). Without some degree of agreement upon the principles of allocation and regulation, the co-ordinated 1

This paper is based on research funded by a Post Graduate Training Award from the Economic and Social Research Council. 2 The research took place between 1994-1996 thus most data refers to experiences with or of the NRA, although in 1996 this was replaced as environmental regulator of water resources by the Environment Agency. 63

restraint of people’s actions that is required for sustainability will be too difficult and costly. How to investigate perceptions of fair water resources management? A questionnaire survey was sent to all abstraction license holders in the area and to other non-abstracting groups and individuals with an interest in water: recreational groups, domestic well users and some local authority staff, agricultural representatives, and conservation groups for example. Three main variables were measured with closed attitude statements: attitudes to the regulator and the licensing system, agreement with a range of water justice principles, and support for different supply and demand management strategies (see Figure 7). However, in this short paper I shall present a qualitative analysis drawing on responses to open questions in the survey, approximately 30 interviews conducted in the area with a range of stakeholders and documentary data.

Figure 7:

Examples of attitude statements Attitudes to the regulator and the licensing system

• • • •

The EA balances the needs of people and the environment well The current water management system represents my interests adequately There is too much politics involved in the allocation of water resources The system is unfair because many people cheat on their license terms

Some water justice philosophies • If I have a licence that I no longer need, I should be allowed to sell it to someone who needs the water • Water should be cheaper for important uses • If the public are fairly consulted I am happy with whatever allocations are decided • Water licences should be targeted to encourage economic growth, rather than given out according to ‘first come first served’ • It is not right for businesses to go short of water to protect the needs of the environment

Support for different water management strategies •National grid •Reservoirs •Pooling licenses •Increasing charges

•Regional transfers •Using less •On-farm storage •Domestic metering •Trading of licenses •Withdrawal of unused licenses •Revoking licences causing environmental problems

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The NRA and Notions of Fairness The NRA's Water Resources Strategy document published in 1993 stated its principal water resources aim as being: to manage water resources to achieve the right balance between the needs of the environment and those of the abstractors (NRA, 1993, 1). So the regulator was to implement strategies and policies that avoid risk to the environment and the risk of derogation to existing abstraction licenses. Essentially then, for the regulator fairness was implied as balance. In decisions at the ground level, three ways in which this balance is played out can be identified: within the conditions for granting a licence, in dealing with uncertainty and in the application of restrictions on licenses. Firstly, since the 1960s the most fundamental principle of fairness governing water allocation in England and Wales has been ‘first-come-first-served’. In practice, this meant that water resources ‘allocation’ was not actually determined by the NRA, but was demand lead. The perception of the regulator staff was that “the NRA does not make value judgements on where the water is going”. NRA staff commented that: The irrigation can take place if their water is there. That’s the only decision we can make. It is hard for the public to understand but the NRA cannot differentiate between the worth of water allocations. Should water be allocated from racecourses to potatoes? The staff saw their decisions as being professionally, i.e. legally and technically, driven as scientists and bureaucrats. Their idea of fairness was essentially procedural and operational; about being unbiased as an institution and as individuals carrying out their duties. A license would only be issued if an application met the following general conditions: • there is sufficient water available • the need for water is justified

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• all rights of existing users are protected • the water environment is not unacceptably affected. It is in assessing these conditions and criteria that the meaning of fair water resource allocation for the regulator has been established. However, as the idea of what was right balance become more contentious at the local level as competition for water increased tensions between the different objectives of the regulator were being exposed. A particular example has been ‘licenses of right’ which essentially meant a first-come-keep policy as these have restricted the ability of the NRA to balance new risks to the environment against existing allocation. The second way in which fairness has been constructed is through uncertainty. For new allocation, any certainty in calculating resource availability and environment impact depends on the adequacy of the regulators' scientific models and rainfall data. But the regulator is always working with a degree of scientific uncertainty and subjective judgements over, for example: • the amount of water the environment needs • the 'acceptable' planning margins • the allowance made within a license for the need for water during drought years (which effectively denies water to other potential abstractors in normal years). One water manager felt that expectations placed on environmental management had become too high and were demanding immediate solutions that might not in fact reflect sustainability: It can be causing damage but you can't do anything about it. And that’s where panic happens in the NRA. In organisations, people can not sit by and think that they can do nothing. You know, .. we can get to the moon, so why can’t we do something about this .. well we can’t. So things dry out naturally and you can't do anything about it, but humans cannot accept that. This comment by one NRA officer indicates the uncertainty within which they must operate:

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Well, we didn’t know actually at what level there would have been environmental damage. We stopped in both years, we stopped them [irrigators]; we gained control and there was no environmental damage. But we never did get an answer to the question “at what levels do you get this environmental damage?” Clearly, the requirement for an abstraction embargo in terms of levels of environmental risk or derogation to existing abstractors is open to dispute. The third dimension to fairness within the NRA’s operations is in dealing with where the burden of risk to the environment and other abstractors falls during drought, i.e. the allocation of restrictions. Any restrictions to abstraction are allocated according to hydrological impact. Should the cessation conditions3 on a license fall on all surface abstractors regardless of the size of their license, even though large license holders will contribute relatively more to the arrival of low flows? Should newer licenses have a more stringent cessation clause that would then increase low flows? In practice, the Anglian region has chosen the application of uniform cessation clauses as fair. Also at dispute was the mechanism for allocating restrictions on irrigation during drought. A lack of notice about restrictions had caused problems for the farming community at the start of the 1989-92 drought, and later, the allocation of restrictions according to a hydrological logic caused much upset among the local farming community. A 2km 'ribbon' of restrictions along the river was considered to be correct and fair, rather than a ban across the whole catchment. Farmers found that neighbouring farms were subject to either different or no restrictions at all. They began to question the legitimacy of the restrictions and also the expertise and competence of the NRA staff generally. This raises the question of whether it is fairer for restrictions to be based on scientific or social boundaries? The Perceptions of Other Stakeholders - Qualitative Analysis I have argued that the regulatory framework for managing water resources was chiefly characterised by 'balance': resource management decisions involved balancing its different duties and objectives, often under conditions of scientific uncertainty. Its strategies have been bounded in the first instance by historical precedent that protects existing allocations and by a precautionary approach to environmental protection in the second instance. 3

Cessation conditions are written into surface water abstraction licenses to automatically limit or prevent abstraction when flows or levels fell below predetermined thresholds. 67

The tension that is created in balancing these dual objectives is reflected in the support or otherwise expressed by different stakeholders. Whether or not the regulator is perceived as acting fairly is linked to the stakeholders attitude to risk and their expectations of the role of the regulator in assessing and dealing with risk to supplies or to the aquatic environment. This is clear from the following accounts of the perspectives of the 4 main stakeholders. Farmers' concerns The reactions of farmers to the restrictions on irrigation may be explained in several ways. Traditionally, for farmers a water license had been viewed as an insurance against the effects of water shortage - a risk avoidance mechanism. The role of water resource management, and therefore of the regulator, was perceived as being to reduce unpredictability, and to ensure the security of their supply. Although on its formation the NRA’s duties were legitimated through a moral mandate to ‘guard the environment’for the common good, the role of the regulator had been taken by abstractors to be 'guardian of their supplies' and water management by the NRA was seen principally as a service to their business, as much as a function of environmental regulation. The need for a regulator was strongly accepted amongst farmers. However, because farmers are now far more dependent on water, their need for water is a result of the dictates of a global food production system and is not conceived simply in terms of coping with the vagaries of the weather. Abstraction restrictions added to the level of business uncertainty that farmers were experiencing. It is in the context of the large financial risks and gains, that farmers argued their claims in relation to others, and how they judged water regulations implemented in favour of the environment. Farmers were able to challenge the NRA more easily than the forces of the food economy. The farmers’ claims to water also drew on a natural justice due to agriculture because of society's elementary dependence on it and their social responsibility to satisfy the food market. This gave the farmers a strong sense of where they stood in the order of things and which they felt was not taken account of in a drought management policy that targeted agricultural abstraction first. For farmers, fair water resources management did not involve issues of environmental equity. With the granting of a licence, the farmers expected the regulator to have taken the environment into account when the licenses were issued. They therefore were ready to blame environmental problems on the incompetence of the regulator, so did not accept that they should be exposed to the risk of restrictions should shortages occur.

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The farmers’ idea of water was first and foremost as an input into their businesses rather than an environmental good – in distinction to the remit of the NRA. Also, there was a sense of water ownership amongst farmers for the groundwater resource. One farmer commented: And of course borehole abstractors feel that the aquifer is their reservoir. This is perfectly justifiable .. they collect the water by letting it run through their soil and it goes into the aquifer. Basically they have collected the water. These notions of water colour their acceptance of any risks to supply. As mentioned above, an added dimension to the unfairness was the tension between the use of hydrological instead of social boundaries for determining catchment policy. The NRA insisted on hydrological professionalism and was not able take account of social impacts. An Internal Drainage Board officer noted that: When you have a situation where certain areas, because of if you like drought conditions, there is an embargo on spray irrigation say, it goes beyond merely a group of farmers not having water. It destroys the whole competitive nature of their business. If they were all effected in the same way and there was national drought and everyone would just say we’ve got to put up with it - then I think that becomes a little bit more acceptable. But where it really gets people where they are in a certain catchment where there is an embargo and from their farm they can see the spray irrigators working on the horizon. [IDB] Farmers perceived that decisions were made arbitrarily and this caused much frustration. The NRA had clearly not communicated the reasoning behind the ‘line’ determining restrictions in a manner that convinced the farmers of its legitimacy. This perception of inadequate expertise was undermining the legitimacy of the regulators authority and competence. As a result, farmers wanted decisions to be more scientifically legitimated - more science was the means of getting better and more acceptable decisions. Following the uncertainty and the unacceptably high levels of risk to their businesses, a new approach to coping with the drought was sought. This is how the Lark Valley Abstractors (LVA) came to be. They negotiated with the NRA a voluntary reduction in abstraction to 50% of licensed amounts. The farmers hoped that they would be able to live without an interruption to their supplies, while for the NRA the forecasting of resource use behaviour was improved. The 69

members of the LVA agreed together on restrictions that were applied equally to all before they became necessary to any. The NRA hoped that relations among neighbours would have the effect of policing water use and lead to better self-regulation. The arrangement relied on trust and the expectation that both sides would co-operate, but was viewed as successful because it increased certainty for both sides. The levels of trust and mutual expectations of proper conduct between the abstractors themselves, and the improved perceptions of fairness through a social fairness norm meant that extra efforts were being made on both sides for a socially as well as ecologically sustainable regulatory regime. As one farmer put it: People have stopped thinking that it is either 'them or us'. It's a mutual process; of finding a compromise. That's one of the big changes. Perceptions of the environmentalists In contrast to farmers who wanted scientific uncertainty to be addressed, environmentalists were found to be more accepting of a limit to expertise. For them uncertainty is endemic and, in the absence of better scientific understanding, equity is embedded in a stricter application of the precautionary principle. The technical competence of the NRA was less a part of fairness than the moral values dictating environmental protection. The environmentalists had a more holistic view of water as part of the wider natural system. They were critical of the NRA's philosophy of balance which gave similar considerations towards being reasonable and worthwhile to the environment, as to other demands. Environmental requirements ought not to compete with other uses or be judged on similar grounds. For them, fair water resources management implies prioritising rather than balancing away environmental need. Current regulation has not addressed sufficiently the risk to the common good that is the environment: It is important to protect water resources from over-abstraction or supply related development not only because of the intrinsic value of the landscape and ecosystems which are supported but also because the quality of the environment underpins social and economic objectives. (Council for the Protection of Rural England) An industrial abstractor's perspective An industrial abstractor in the catchment appealed against a refused application for an increase in its license. Without the increase the company would have to

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purchase supplies from the private water company at a cost that was 50 times greater. Its objection was based in a claim to water that had been allocated to the Water Company beyond its statutory duty to supply the local population. The Water Company was accused of sitting on this water that would otherwise benefit the community. The industrial user argued that its expansion would bring increased employment opportunities, and that it might have to close with the loss of many jobs if it were not able to obtain more water to enable it to remain competitive. Its challenge to the embargo was essentially a challenge to the fairness of the first-come-first-served principle as being against the public good now that no new resources were available. It also challenged the legitimacy of a regulator that had no remit or ability to take into consideration issues beyond environmental sustainability, i.e. economic or social impacts when making abstraction decisions. Concerns of the Water Company For the large private Water Company their main fairness concerns were as a supplier of water rather than as a competitor for resources. They were concerned with risk to their public image that might invoke tighter financial regulation. The demand management panacea was also of concern in terms of the inherent uncertainty in predicting demand. They felt that the public were not playing a sufficient part in the change in water culture by changing their own behaviour- that they were expecting the responsibility for tighter environmental protection and a reduction in demand to be left to the water companies. The private water company felt that any environmental protection could only be fair if it were underpinned by a cost-benefit analysis (CBA), implying that the regulator should employ a CBA criteria as its approach to environmental risk and water management. Conclusion The variety of views previously described indicate that considerations regarding what is 'right' water policy demand attention to social and cultural context. Clearly there are different expectations of water and beliefs about risk management and these are as important for achieving sustainability (in it widest sense) as getting better numbers. If our responses to the stresses of climate change are to reflect our cultural choices and values then we must have decision-making processes that allow those values to be made explicit and to be openly debated. As Wenz (1988, 2) argues:

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In addition to increasing self-understanding, an exploration of different ideas about justice helps people to better understand others....This can aid communication with them and can serve as a basis for working out some of our disagreements. Normative stances need to be exchanged. Acceptable levels of scientific uncertainty are just one example; what are reasonable and fair levels of precaution when science is inadequate? Although actions taken by the regulator staff were seen to be technical and instrumental, the legal basis of regulation entails a commitment to a particular set of values and ethical commitments. Would irrigators rather not be allocated water in the first place than be allocated water with conditions they dislike? In water resources regulation, it is worth considering the argument of Grove-White & Szerszynski (1992, 294) ...that no particular person can claim meaningfully to be in a position to reveal the ‘true’ (as it were ’ultimate’) meaning of ethical judgments. In the essentially dialogical picture of ethics proposed here, ethical judgment can not be reduced to the monological deliberation of a privileged observer. Interpretations are open to challenge, and to further interpretation. There seems to be no space for local normative deliberation and exchange in the current regulatory system. Yet, licensing officers, historically experienced in dealing with technical assessments applications, are having to change to become problem solvers. Lack of specialisation/expertise by the regulator was raised again and again by stakeholders and this may reflect the past focus of the NRA on a technical/scientific approach to water management. Staff skills will need to be enhanced and diversified to convince stakeholders of their ability to understand different perspectives and contexts and thereby enhance the legitimacy of a regulator working towards sustainability that is as fair as possible for all. References Grove-White, R. and Szerszynski B. (1992) Getting behind environmental ethics. Environmental Values, 1(3), 285-296. NRA (1993) NRA Water Resources Strategy. NRA, Bristol. Wenz, P. (1988). Environmental Justice. State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.

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How communities network: a case study of Mile Cross, Norwich Richard Stowe Community Development Officer, Norwich City Council This paper is based upon understanding gained from eleven years of field practice in Community Development whilst working with Norwich City Council. For the purposes of the paper, I am making the assumption that communities are inherently geographical entities. The notion of “communities of interest” relates across geographical communities and by their nature do not have a common understanding of locality. Communities relate through a common history, buildings, landmarks, collective experiences and a common understanding. There are shops, neighbours, families, schools, churches, community facilities, youth facilities, etc. For the past seven years I have been involved in working in the Mile Cross area of Norwich, and the characteristics here are similar to many geographical communities, the definition being its boundaries of two main roads and a river, and for me it certainly is a community. The population is approximately 8,000, the housing stock is 75% rented (mainly council), 25% private (mainly right to buy). The layout of the estate has been based on early “garden city” design style, with much of the estate built in the 1920s and early 1930s. More recently, 1960s housing including three tower blocks and maisonettes have been added. Mile Cross was one of the very first major local authority housing developments. How Do People Know About Things? • Informal communications – this is often through neighbours, friends, family, and is generally word of mouth. • Formal communications – television, radio, national press, local press, newsletters, notice boards, letters and agendas. Generally speaking, the greater the media appeal is, the more knowledge is generated. Knowledge becomes a currency transferable to and repeated through informal communications networks. An example of this was when a paedophile was exposed in the national press on a Sunday morning and within a couple of hours his, by now empty, house had had all the windows smashed in.

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The modes of formal communications are varied. Research in Mile Cross by Waters (1998), using focus groups, shows that people have a high regard for notice boards to convey information. A newsletter produced by local people also goes to every household three times a year; this contains information about community groups, news and the work of the Community Forum. The newsletter is funded by Norwich City Council. Participation in Community Action as a Response to Communication Communication of issues and needs is transferred from informal networks to formal networks. For instance, the pigeon fanciers of Mile Cross have an informal network, their needs and issues become articulated within the formal networks through groups or committees. This makes it a tangible and identifiable body that can be responded to and articulated for by outside groups and power bodies. Figure 8 presents a selection of interest groups and core activities in Mile Cross which illustrates the range and variety of social networks within the community. Community Power In Mile Cross, as well as much of Norwich, the Community Power initiative has become a central model to legitimise community needs and issues, and it is being viewed as a good example of democracy at work. The initiative started off with a blank sheet of paper with people being asked to determine which format to set their agenda so that they could choose a format through which to involve the community and the Council. Ten representatives have come forward and their links with other community groups are established, not through representation from the Forum to those groups, but through their own networking and involvement. The Community Power Community Forum model provides an opportunity for local representatives to sit alongside Councillors and provides the Council and other agencies with an ideal opportunity for consultation and participation. The perennial question remains as to how much a forum, or a group of 10, 12 or 15 people, can actually form a basis for consultation and participation with a community. At community level they are beginning to address this by embarking on a “community planning” process.

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Figure 8:

Contact between Forum Members and Community Based Groups

PLAYGROUP

PARENT & TODDLER

BOOKSTART

MILE CROSS CHURCHES

FIRST AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS

COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

CHAT LINE

HEALTH SHOP

MILE CROSS COMMUNITY POWER FORUM

NEWSLETTER

PIGEON FANCIERS

MILE CROSS ECO ORCHARD

COMMUNITY PLANNING GROUP

TENANTS SUB GROUP

COMMUNITY CAFE

TOWNSWOME GUILD

MA USE

COMMUN SERVIC

ONE STOP SHOP PHOENIX CHILDREN’S PROJECT PLAYSCHEMES

ALLOTMENT HOLDERS

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH

NORMAL COM CENTR JUNIOR CLUB

Community planning The forum representatives define how they are going about producing a Community Plan. It is about a baseline assessment of their community and a needs analysis as to what potential projects there are in the area, what issues are facing the community, and what investments are or could be encouraged from within or outside the area. The community development process encourages community planning through capacity building. This is supported through the following activities: • community conferences • “planning for real” style workshops – (in Mile Cross this involved redesigning the local community centre) • community needs analysis • surveys on specific themes/issues, i.e. playarea provision, open spaces, traffic It is preferable that the above that the community should have a sense of wellbeing of these processes. In summary, communities are geographically based; motivation for people’s involvement in their communities tends to be reactive to issues. People learn about things through informal and formal communication networks; these in turn may overlap and can form a basis for the legitimisation of the representation by local people to speak on behalf of and with their immediate neighbourhood.

Reference Walters, A. (1998) Potential for Increased Public Participation in Forming More Sustainable Communities: A Case Study of the Mile Cross Area of Norwich. CSERGE, University of East Anglia and University College London.

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