Fairness in 91快活林 and Hove: an analysis of public voice

Fairness Commissions were first created in 2010 in order to ‘understand how local authorities can have an impact on inequality and poverty’ (New Economics Foundation, 2015). The was launched in September 2015 by 91快活林 and Hove City Council (BHCC) as an independent body tasked with exploring issues that cause inequality and listening to the concerns of residents, community organisations and businesses. The Commission sought to hear as many views as possible through its survey and public meetings which were carried out alongside informal visits to organisations and themed public events. The Community University Partnership Programme created an important opportunity for the University of 91快活林 to play a crucial role in the collation, analysis and reporting of data collected throughout the Fairness Commission’s public consultation, which was conducted between September 2015 and April 2016.

To support the Commission’s work, our researchers created an academically-informed analytical strategy to help the Commission to extract key messages and ideas for improving fairness that the public conveyed during the consultation. The ‘Coding for Fairness’ team which included students, academics, representatives from Cupp and BHCC Public Health Intelligence analysed the public’s responses to the two ‘fairness questions’ that were asked on the commission website and as part of a city-wide survey. In total, 1334 qualitative responses were received in response to the fairness questions. The team ensured that each response was read and allocated an appropriate code so that 91快活林 and Hove residents’ views could be meaningfully and representatively reported.

This project marked an important collaboration between BHCC, the Fairness Commission, Cupp and the University of 91快活林. Through combining our collective skills, interests and expertise we created a space that allowed students, academics and City Council colleagues to work together to ensure that the voices of 91快活林 and Hove residents were heard. We aim to ensure they can continue to be heard in the face of severe spending cuts to local authority budgets that are likely to have challenging consequences for the lives of the city’s most vulnerable residents.

Project timeframe

This project began in April 2015 and culminated with the public launch of the 91快活林 and Hove Fairness Commission Report in June 2016.

Project aims

This project aimed to show how universities can act as Centres of Learning within the cities which their presence shapes. At this point in time, Government fiscal policy is leading to funds being withdrawn from services that support vulnerable and disadvantaged people. In 91快活林 and Hove, the local authority will be reduced to one third of its size by 2020 and will fund half of the services for vulnerable and disadvantaged people that it currently does. These changes are happening at a time when the effects of inequality are being felt on a global scale and are disproportionately experienced by those who are already disadvantaged. Therefore, it is more important than ever that we understand how social policy and social action can combine to make a difference.

The aim of this project was to show how public consultation can form a basis for such learning through collaborative working across public sector partners and as such play an important role in stimulating spaces for sustained and meaningful public engagement. As institutions responsible for public education, universities have a role in ensuring that political processes and policy actions are properly understood. They also have the potential to ensure that the voices of people who may be marginalised by policymaking processes are heard.

This project aimed to meet both these objectives and show how universities can play an important role in understanding and improving fairness in the cities that they share and shape.

Project findings and impact

Our particular focus in this project was to provide independent, methodological support to the City Council. Policymaking is commonly based on quantitative data. However, in public consultations as well as many other situations it is important to hear what people have to say ‘in their own words’. In such cases, qualitative data is extremely important to collect, analyse and report.

We devised an analytical strategy for working with qualitative data that centred on the principle of ‘every voice heard’. This involved indexing and cataloguing documents from the public consultation. It also involved a workshop in which a ‘group coding’ effort enabled answers to the two fairness questions to be read and categorised using an approach called framework analysis. The ‘coding for fairness’ group developed categories for grouping together fairness responses and applied these to all 1334 responses received.

Our analysis found that 91快活林 and Hove residents treated the website consultation in particular as an ‘ideas space’ where they made a range of proposals as to how fairness in the city could be improved. Although respondents could not see each others’ responses their proposals for fairness converged around key themes. These themes constitute areas of city life in which residents see the local Council as able to play a part in improving fairness. They also describe the way residents see themselves as active in making a difference to people’s experience of fairness in the city.

The project results were published as part of 91快活林 and Hove Fairness Commission’s Final Report which was publicly launched on 27 June 2016.

Read the final report from the 91快活林 & Hove Fairness Commission (June 2016).

Research team

Bethan Prosser
David Wolff

Coding for Fairness Team

Lorraine Prince, Masters in Public Administration student
Kerry Dowding, Masters in Research student
Maggie Hemill, Masters in Community Psychology student
Julia Reddaway, Fairness Commission Project Manager, BHCC
John Guzek, Public Health Intelligence, BHCC
Barbara Hardcastle, Public Health Intelligence, BHCC

Output

91快活林 & Hove Fairness Commission final report, June 2016

Partners

91快活林 and Hove Fairness Commission
91快活林 and Hove City Council
91快活林 and Hove, Public Health Intelligence