GOVERNMENT, SAY SOMETHING!
Working Towards the Future
Government and Non-Profit
Chapter Part
III
Sector
SCENARIO COMUNICATION AS A FLEXIBLE POLICY INSTRUMENT
Clara Ormeling, Consultant, Total Identity Inge Sijpkens, Consultant, Total Identity
For years there has been talk about the gap between Government and the citizen, and ways have been sought to bridge it. Ideas such as ‘engaging in dialogue’, ‘transparency’ and ‘trust’ as well as terms such as ‘reducing administrative pressure’, ‘providing better services’ and ‘decisiveness’ are to be found everywhere in policy planning. Yet the gap has never actually been bridged. What is going wrong? Or better still, what is missing? It is time to reveal what has up to now been invisible, and to make a plea for pro-active communication on the part of the administrative machinery of central Government. Openness and Dialogue The last few decades have been characterised by big changes in the relationship between citizens and the administration. In particular, the advent of the (new) media has had a great influence. In earlier times, managers and politicians could formulate policy in relative secrecy. Because of the extensive presence of television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet, this has become impossible. Citizens can and do follow what is happening in The Hague.
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Perhaps the most important change that the advent of the Internet has led to for central Government is the possibility of a two-way street, the opportunity to engage in dialogue with society. Ministries can introduce themselves, communicate their policies, and set out their positions on the Internet. Citizens can then respond directly, by initiating contact with central Government and each other. They can thus not only form an image of central Government, but also adjust this image at any time, because of new information that reaches them via the Web. This has an enormous effect on the formation of images. After all, it is no longer just central Government itself and the traditional media that central Government must keep informed. Society itself—individuals, organisations, campaign groups—also express themselves and disseminate information. It is impossible for central Government to retain control over what is said and written about it.
Trust Many citizens therefore form their own opinions about policy and public business and also regularly express this opinion trenchantly. Citizens have become critical. With such citizens as an audience, it is very important to be open about policy, choices, and the reasons for these . After all, if there is anything that society asks from central Government, it is not just to listen to them and tell them that the Government is doing all it can for a better Netherlands, but to show it as well. If central Government only says something, does it believe in it and does it do it too? How does it do it? The possibilities for dialogue introduced by the new media create expectations in the area of accessibility, speed, and capacity. Therefore, in all kinds of ways the Government is increasingly striving for openness and dialogue. That is also necessary, as shown by studies by the Social and Cultural Planning Office, because for years the level of trust that citizens have in the Government has declined, and their opinion about its actual performance has become more negative. It is notable that the civil service has for a long time had a very limited role in communication with society about what the central Government is doing and how it does it. Even now it is mainly the ministers, secretaries of state, and members of parliament who are given the task of reducing their distance from the citizen by engaging in dialogue. The civil service is less prominent in this. The communications of the civil service machinery are limited to providing information about policy that is already formulated and putting out feelers to test policy intentions. The civil service is consequently a passive object about which much is said, but that does not speak for itself. It is rarely visible, especially in relation to its role in the formation of policy. The civil service does not get the chance to form an adequate relationship with society. The invisible bureaucracy is at odds with what citizens want from the Government (to be heard) and with what they want to see (evidence). ‘Trust is the basis of a properly functioning government,’ says the new Government programme, but trust must first be earned as proof that it is deserved. Isn’t the administrative machinery of the ministry, with its substantive knowledge