Responding to public priorities is the job of democratic governments. Meaningful responsiveness takes time and may cost some money; in short, this is the “cost of doing business” for democratic governments. While being smart and efficient when matching your budget to your public engagement is crucial, a lack of budget is not a persuasive reason not to conduct this process. In practice, the ten steps of the feedback loop process look different for every local authority, but they are designed to be feasible in all democratic governance contexts and across the spectrum of available resources. 

The feedback loop process is designed to be as low-cost as possible so that scarce time and budget can be directed to implementing priorities.

  • Time costs include the time of municipal officials and staff to prepare for and collect citizen feedback, analyze inputs and communicate with the public.
  • Convening costs include (again) the time of municipal officials and participating community residents and any logistic costs required for meeting in a public or community space. Note that sufficient thought should be given to ensuring that diverse community members can meaningfully and effectively participate in the convenings – this may involve some logistic costs or costs associated with reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities or working parents. For example, would offering childcare or language interpretation allow more residents to participate in a meeting?
  • Materials costs include those associated with printing questionnaires during data collection (e.g., surveys), the cost of postage if mailing surveys, or the cost of fuel or transportation if visiting residents door to door. Costs will arise for developing and printing reports on the feedback findings, next steps and updates for public distribution. Such costs can vary based on the chosen approach. It is crucial for local administration leadership to understand and budget for these costs upfront.
  • Costs to implement identified solutions include those related to development and implementation. Public feedback will ideally point to a specific challenge or set of challenges – related to infrastructure, public services or broader development planning – that will require expenditures from the public budget to be addressed. Cost requirements to implement prioritized reforms or plans can be allocated over time as appropriate. The feedback loop builds in periodic updates to inform the public about implementation timelines, delays and when promises are fulfilled. Most people understand that projects and reforms require time, money and materials, which may lead to delays. The key is to communicate openly and proactively about these issues.

It is always advisable to overestimate human time and material cost requirements as unexpected events or obstacles to this – or any process – inevitably occur, and contingency planning is a useful mitigation measure.

Is a feedback loop just extra work for busy officials?

Rather than “extra work,” this process should help local authorities do the work they are already doing more efficiently. The time spent listening to feedback should result in clear priorities for staff and officials to respond to; these priorities will be the basis of direction and strategy to align the entire local administration toward common goals, and officials can be confident that they are aligned with residents on the same priorities. 

While a local authority must provide services, maintain infrastructure and foster the sustainable economic and social development of their community, the local authority is also responsible for the prudent and responsible investment of local taxes, fees and other revenue resources. This requires decisions to balance public demands for particular investments against the reality of a city’s financial and operational capacities. To determine this balance, leaders must consider the return on investment of particular expenditures, not just in monetary or revenue terms, but also concerning potential impacts on community well-being, health and vibrancy. With regard to investments, cash-strapped local authorities – armed with a list of public priorities – may find success in fundraising for projects from within their own communities, by partnering with neighboring communities to build a shared project, or by approaching the national government or private sector investors. Public feedback data provides evidence for these investment priorities and can support advocacy for external or community-based funding.

Box 5. Learn from experience – Tackling big projects through a priority-driven phased approach

In a Moldovan city, leaders who implemented a feedback loop process faced a funding conundrum. Resident responses to a door-to-door survey indicated that paving local roads was a top priority. However, the municipality did not have sufficient funds for a full-scale paving project. Officials worried that paving only part of the roadways would cause contention, since some residents would benefit over others. They also worried about delaying the paving project and instead addressing a different priority issue because residents would feel they had been ignored after participating in the survey. What to do? 

Local officials decided to make their newly forged community engagement work for them: they entered into dialogue with the community about how to approach the paving project, given the reality of the limited budget. Together, they found a compromise, deciding to pave a particular street that year, with plans to pave additional sections in the future. With the community on board for this incremental approach, and their understanding of why an incremental approach was necessary, the local authority was able to meet resident priorities within their budget and to manage public expectations about the pace of change: win-win.

Précédent Suivant