Optivote Case Study: Bradford Council Area Conferences 2008

Introduction

In 2006 Bradford Council's Neighbourhood service embarked on a series of conferences in order to build robust action plans for the following two / three years. The conferences were a successful tool for engaging with the public and with services and, therefore, we have repeated this process in 2008. The conferences help us (the Council) to look at constituency wide issues and develop priorities. Once priorities have been identified we are able to establish actions that will address these priorities. However, it is not just the Council that take these priorities onboard. The Police, Health services, Schools, etc. need to be part of this process because they also have a part to play in addressing these priorities and it is necessary to build a plan that is actionable and not merely a wish list.

Preparation
In order for area offices to gain meaningful information it is necessary to consult with the public regularly. There are a number of ways for us to achieve this eg. Neighbourhood Forums, Partnership Working, Action Plans, Surveys, etc. These methods give us the opportunity to identify recurring local issues. It also gives us the opportunity to spot issues at inception and study the development of problems that may need more specific attention. Due to recent developments the information we collect will fall into one of the six following themes:- Prosperity and Regeneration; Children and Young People; Safer Communities; Health and Wellbeing; The Environment; Strong and Cohesive Communities. In order to use this information at an area conference a filtering process is required. Therefore, we must make sure the issues that we are made aware of most are up for debate as well as the priorities that are important to agencies and services working in the area eg. fly tipping, increasing entrepreneurship, etc. This process helped the Bradford West Area Coordinator’s Office and the Shipley Area Coordinator’s Office narrow down the list of issues up for debate creating a
long list of 16 per theme and these were inputted into the Optivote system. The issues were inputted on to the Optivote system as questions with yes or no answers and they corresponded with buttons A and B on the voting pads. Workshops were created for each theme to dwindle the long lists down to 5 and after the workshops had reached their conclusions the 5 priorities were delivered to the team controlling the Optivote system. During a short break the long lists were edited accordingly to leave us with the 5 priorities.

Voting
Once the conference had reconvened the Optivote handsets were distributed to all who attended and each priority was projected onto the screen one by one. Once all had voted we moved things along manually. The Optivote system does have timer to do this but, from experience, people tend to speed up once they become more confident. This was very much the case and we were able to show the results instantaneously through the histogram function. The over all time spent voting shocked my colleagues, they had expected it to be a little more time consuming but it was over in a flash.
Results
The final results were also displayed quickly and this is where using this technology has its most important benefit. We were able to show the public, at least 100 strong at both conferences, the overall results on the day. This may not sound impressive, however, previous conferences have had to feed back to the attendees at a later date by post.
As you can imagine an awful lot of impact is lost when results are posted out post-conference. Therefore, Optivote is a great tool of engagement from start to finish.

Conclusion

I have used the Optivote system twice in the past. The first time was to do a quiz for elected members at a conference. It was merely an ice breaking activity but they and I alike were impressed by it. The second time I used it was to support an inter-departmental service delivery plan development. It proved to be invaluable because of its ability to provide quick results in a fair and democratic way. It should be clear by now that my feelings towards this software and equipment is most positive. However, this does not paint the full picture. The Optivote team were supportive all the way through the process. No question was too daft and if it was they were very professional, so much so I never felt anything but confidence. Furthermore, the software has had some updates since I used it last and although I could probably have worked it out, given it is very easy to use, Jeff Eke from Optivote came to the office to take a couple of colleagues and I through it. Many thanks to Optivote for both service and the clever equipment it has been a pleasure to work with you and I look forward to repeating such in the future. Paul Kilgallon Neighbourhood Support Officer BDMC