Stakeholder and Citizen Participation in the Australian Public Sector
As the use and reach of
social media continues to grow further and adapt, organisations from both the
public and private sector are required to use these channels to not only
deliver information to stakeholders and citizens, but to engage with them and
respond accordingly to any negative or positive feedback. Bingham, Nabatchi and
O’Leary (2005) suggest that this is in relation to the Australian public
sector, especially when organized by the movement as part of policy
development.
The Australian public
sector is moving towards a more citizen-centric organization, where both
stakeholders and citizens are allowed to make a collective decision so that the
government is able to develop policies and design services that respond to
individuals’ needs according to their circumstances.
Involving stakeholders and
citizens to support the public sector in decision-making and delivering of
services have to take into account the emergence of new technologies, mainly
through the web and social media.
In this essay, I will talk about an example
of a limitation by using new technology, and discuss how the Australian
Taxation Office make use of Web 2.0 to engage and interact with their
stakeholders and citizens.
Is embracing new technologies not without its limits?
It is argued that
government departments are starting to embrace new technologies to make public
policy more open and inclusive, with caution (Suggett 2012). In regards to
Suggett’s argument, an example of government departments embracing new
technologies would be the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and their #CensusFail
on the 9th of August 2016. In a bid to move into the online-verse of
technology to be more inclusive, while keeping the paper form available, an
overload of traffic crashed the Census website, which was blamed onto hackers
with no ounce of proof from the government. According to News.com.au, Troy
Hunt, one of the world’s experts on data breaches, said, “the most likely
explanation is that the ABS was just not prepared properly (Chester 2016).” A
challenge for this case in relation to Suggett’s argument, is how the
government operates and engages with channels? What governance arrangements
need to accompany such engagement (Suggett 2012)?
Engaging Stakeholders with Web 2.0 tools.
There are many ways in
which stakeholders and citizens can be engaged; some of these examples range
from information collaboration and sharing responsibility in decision-making.
According to the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
(2011), the government is using Web 2.0 tools increasingly with “a modern
interface of engagement and as a means of engaging with citizens. According to
a study done in Romania, the researcher concluded, “public organisations have
gradually become aware of the benefits that social media tools may have on
their communication with their stakeholders (Cmeciu 2004).” This means that
public organisations that use Web 2.0 tools shape the new public space by
providing another forum for deliberated enhancing discussion, and “promoting a
democratic exchange of ideas and opinions (Kahane et al. 2013).”
Web 2.0 tools are
encouraging forms of engagement, including technologies such as social media,
wikis and blogs. They enable stakeholders and citizens with information
sharing, collaboration and capacity building. These new approaches in
technology can place stakeholders and citizens at the centre of a relationship
with the government and the policies.
The Australian Taxation Office and use of Web 2.0 tools to engage citizens and stakeholders.
A prime example of a
government department engaging with stakeholders and citizens successfully
using social media is the Australian Taxation Office. From my own personal
experience, I work in the Learning and Development part of the Taxation Office
in Melbourne. MacNamara, Sakinofsky and Beattie (2012) state that the ATO’s
overall objective is to increase the usage of e-tax, which is an online tool
created to appeal competent internet users. Most of these users would use
social media as well.
Other objectives for using
social media provides citizens with the additional means to access information
and be educated, increase the ATO’s online presence, promote the ATO Web Site
as the single source of authority as well as increasing engagement to create
dialogue and share views.
The ATO’s online
engagement started in 2008 with a Facebook page promoting e-tax, which has
since been promoted to an official page with currently 109,399 likes, a Twitter
account set up in 2010 with currently 45,719 followers and a YouTube page
created in 2011 with now 7,235 subscribers.
Each of these social media
platforms is used for different objectives. For example, the ATO’s YouTube
channel is used to deliver educational messages and information. Twitter is
used for short, direct messages where citizens can ask customer enquiries,
whereas Facebook is the most official platform, which is best for sharing and
commenting.
While the main challenges
are managing privacy and confidentiality, the ATO have implemented high-level
security settings, bank details and tax file numbers are not to be revealed
under any circumstances and key-word tracking that is used to eliminate
profanity.
Reference List:
Bingham, LB, Nabatchi, T
& O’Leary, R 2005, ‘The New Governance: Practices and Processes for
Stakeholder and Citizen Participation in the Work of Government’, Public Administration Review, vol, 65,
no 5, pp. 547-558.
MacNamara, J, Sakinofsky,
P & Beattie, J 2012, ‘Other Government Departments and Agencies’
e-democracy initiatives and learnings’, E-Lectoral
Engagement: Maintaining and Enhancing Democratic Participation through Social
Media, pp. 1-94.
Cmeciu, C 2014, ‘Web 2.0
Communication and Stakeholder Engagement Strategies: How Romanian Public
Organisations use Facebook,’ Procedia –
Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol 143, pp. 879-883.
Kahane, D et al. 2013, ‘Stakeholder
and Citizen Roles in Public Deliberation,’ Journal
of Public Deliberation, vol 9, no 2, pp. 1-37.
Chester, R 2016, ‘Census
fail: ABS says hackers attacked website despite denials, after nearly $500,000
was spent on load testing servers’, News
Corp Australia Network 10 August, viewed 11 August 2016,
Dahle Suggett 2012, Strategies and Challenges for the Australian
Public Sector, viewed 11 August 2016,
< http://sa.ipaa.org.au/Events/Downloads/20120306_IPAA_HPF1_Dahle_Suggett.pdf>
< http://sa.ipaa.org.au/Events/Downloads/20120306_IPAA_HPF1_Dahle_Suggett.pdf>
No comments:
Post a Comment