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https://openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/2018/07/04/supporting-parliamentary-youth-engagement-for-nationaldemocracyweek/

Supporting parliamentary youth engagement for national democracy week

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Policy Lab, Projects

This year marks 100 years since women first won the right to vote in the UK, and the 90th anniversary of the Equal Franchise Act (#TalkDemocracy). To build on their legacy and encourage wider democratic participation, Policy Lab supported the Cabinet Office’s Constitution Group and Government Equalities Office to develop a youth engagement toolkit for MPs and peers. The idea was to build on some of the great stuff already happening, and inspire more young people to take part and ultimately have the confidence to vote when eligible.

Sketch notes expressing research into better youth engagement

So co-designing the materials with those who would use it was essential. The Constitution Group was already working with young people, but wanted Lab support to engage effectively with MPs and their offices.

In a first for Lab, we ran a workshop for MPs. The cross-party group were all highly experienced, with great examples from their own constituencies and others, and lots of ideas about what could be done. We wanted to use that expertise to test some of the ideas the Constitution Group had already developed. Recognising that MPs are pretty pressed for time, we used sketchnotes to quickly explain all the insights from the team’s initial research. Then we shared prototypes of some of the early ideas, such as Live Q&A sessions on social media and journey maps of their day to day decisions.

Finally, we tested the communication of the ideas: did the ‘pack’ created for parliamentarians make sense? Would a hard copy or digital version be most useful? If they had a hard copy, where would they keep it? Who would use it and how?

From left to right: Chloe Smith MP- Minister for the Constitution, Victoria Atkins MP- Minister for Women, Andrea Leadsom Leader of the House of Commons

One key insight - unsurprising, but worth noting in this context - was that MPs are pretty confident public speakers, with loads of experience of meeting people and connecting with them. So the tone of the pack needed to be right - not too patronising or prescriptive.

The pack, produced by the Cabinet Office and Government Equalities Office

We also discovered that any content should be downloadable and easy to find for parliamentary staff who often were on the move and responsible for arranging events and briefings.

From sketch ideas to the youth engagement pack: Tools should be downloadable

Finally Parliamentarians found photographs for social media and hashtags to be really great ways of engaging with young people and taking the conversation to a bigger audience!

From sketch ideas to the youth engagement pack: launch event on 21 March 2018

It has been fantastic to see how ideas and feedback generated from the co-design have gone from challenge definition through to delivery.

From sketch ideas to the youth engagement pack: day to day decisions journey

The most recent Hansard Society Audit of Political Engagement indicated that 18-34 year olds are much less likely than those aged 35 and older to feel knowledgeable about politics. We hope the Government’s pack will go a little way in improving youth engagement whilst encouraging parliamentarians to experiment with new ways of opening up and enriching our democracy.

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