Plataforma Participa311: La Participació Digital a la Província de Barcelona — Participa311 Platform: Online Participation

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Plataforma Participa311: La Participació Digital a la Província de Barcelona — Participa311 Platform: Online Participation

Using the internet and social media to create logics of participation between the local administration and citizens.

Barcelona Provincial Council

Spain

Local policy

POLICY OBJECTIVE

Promote the use of digital technologies as mechanisms to ensure accountability and make local public administrations more effective, efficient, and transparent.
Encourage institutional participatory practices through digital technologies allowing citizens to take part in defining public policies.
Publicize and encourage the use of civic technologies that allow new spaces for listening, opinion sharing, deliberation, proposals, co-production and decision-making of public policies.
Promote inclusive online participation initiatives that take account of digital divides.
Recognize and value citizen-led civic technologies to influence public policy and rethink political spaces and their impact on local institutions.
Promote hybrid (i.e., face-to-face and virtual) spaces for participation.

CONTEXT

As part of its Catalogue Service, the Barcelona Provincial Council offers organizations in the province Participa311 – an example of “civic technology” (i.e., a tool making it easier for citizens to participate digitally). Designed openly and collaboratively with free code (the Decidim software), the platform articulates and manages processes and spaces for citizen participation and, in so doing, opens new paths to direct democracy, deliberation, and collaboration in the design and co-production of public policies.

An institution with more than 30 years of experience promoting citizen participation policies, the Barcelona Provincial Council began promoting this project in 2017. It was designed as an alternative space for citizen conversation and as a chance to tap into the benefits of online tools (e.g., by eliminating the barriers of travel and time schedules, and allowing people that wouldn’t otherwise participate to do so from a more comfortable space).

POLICY DESCRIPTION

The Barcelona Provincial Council provides Participa311 to municipalities and local administrations in the province, and offers various services to participating administrations.

As any technological tool, the platform has certain technical complexities, particularly for personnel unfamiliar with its use and the general public. It also requires an IT infrastructure to put it at the service of citizens with the maximum democratic guarantees. Consequently, apart from offering the platform to local administrations, the Barcelona Provincial Council also provides services like:

Administrator training.
User support.
Required software updates.
Server hosting.

More than a mere platform for local governments in the province, the project allows the Provincial Council to offer resources so that municipalities can promote and develop digital participation policies:

Financial aid.
Technical advice.
Training in the use of other complementary civic technologies.
Preparation of documentation and video tutorials.
Comunitat311, a virtual meeting space for municipal personnel.

KEY ASPECTS

Promotes new participation methods that are more effective and efficient in time use and more transparent.
Promotes more inclusive methods of participation adapted to people facing difficulties participating due to time or mobility issues.

Facilitates participation policies of municipalities in the province of Barcelona.
Promotes more equitable models of participation in the province of Barcelona.

The platform makes it possible to include digital tools and resources in participatory actions that facilitate autonomous information and proposal phases, from any device and with greater flexibility in time. It also allows citizens to participate asynchronously and makes it easier for new audiences to get involved.

The following are some of the various aspects must be considered when implementing the project in a municipality:

It must be politically and technically clear that this digital participation project is part of the local government’s general policy to encourage citizen participation. Participa311 must therefore be considered an additional instrument to include new citizens in the decision-making process. In this sense, use of the platform must be consistent with the other promoted actions.
Given certain technical complexities in managing the platform, qualified technical staff are essential. Administrators must have a minimum of IT knowledge, as well as skills in citizen participation.
Whenever possible, platform administrators should occupy a technical, rather than elected, position.

RESULTS

In the 7 years since project roll-out, 120 city councils and 5 local administrations have used the Participa311 Platform, with 668 participatory processes implemented and 172 participation spaces created.

Policy's Website

Carola

Castellà Josa

Head of the Technical Office for Local Governments Participation

castellajc@diba.cat

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