E-Consultation Policy

Introduction

The eGovernment Authority is keen to introduce and implement eConsultation concept to enable stakeholder participation (especially citizens) and opinion sharing with the Authority.

This policy is prepared with intent to provide assistance to understand the eConsultation process and how citizens and residents can access these services. This policy covers the following:

• eConsultation definition
• eConsultation scope
• eConsultation process cycle
• eConsultation tools
  

After going through the document, if you need further assistance regarding eConsultation, you are welcome to contact the eGovernment Authority at the following:

• Contact Phone no: (+973) – 80008001 Sunday to Thursday from 8 am to 5 pm
• Contact email: contactcenter@ega.gov.bh
• Online: Contact us form available on the National eGovernment Portal.

Definition of eConsultation

The term ‘consultation’ refers to ‘seeking advice’ on a subject of interest. It is a process of participatory involvement of interested parties to collaboratively complete the objective in hand.

Our context
In its role of serving the citizens and stakeholders better, we reach out to our stakeholders for seeking advices / opinions on a number of leading issues/opportunities through consultative approach. The consultative approach helps us to get the first hand information about the stakeholder feedback in an issue/opportunity. In some cases, such an approach is used to pilot a new idea or in most cases a new policy decision. Consulting the interested stakeholders provides key insights into the acceptance of the policy decisions, introduces changes required before mass implementation, identifies possible challenges and most importantly provides certainty on the practical view of the implementation challenges ahead.

eConsultation, defined
eConsultation is the process of enabling the ‘consultative’ interaction between the Authority and the stakeholders using electronic media like internet, mobile, kiosks and conferencing facilities. The chosen media allows on-line interactive mechanism to debate, discuss, share and provide opinion about the government policies, new initiatives etc.

Globally, the eConsultation, as a process has gained significant momentum due to the fact that by adoption of technology, citizens can contribute to the process at their convenience. By and large, eConsultation could play a complementary role (to start with) and mature itself into a primary consultation process over time. Again a number of parameters will determine the level of usability of eConsultation.

eConsultation, Benefits
We envisage a number of benefits by implementing the eConsultation process. The benefits provided below are in addition to the benefits that the consultative process brings in policy making.

• Reach: The chosen media (amongst the options like internet, call centre, kiosks, telephone etc) provides reach and penetration to target communities that are one way or the other aligned to the media listed above
• Increased participation: The target audience tend to participate more if they have consultation access in a media they are familiar with
• Quick response: To the policy makers, eConsultation provides quick and timely response.
• Transparency: The media ensures that the whole process is done transparently and in a manner that everyone can have end to end visibility
• Ease of analysis: Since the data captured (like opinion polls) could be analyzed using online analytical processing tools like business intelligence
• Objective feedback: eConsultation provides an opportunity to record the citizen feedback more objectively than some of the other research methods where bias of the researchers could impact the consultation process

Policy Statement

The eGovernment Authority is committed to seeking feedback and advice from its stakeholders, to ensure the highest level of satisfaction, transparency and effectiveness in decision and policy Making. Stakeholders are encouraged to participate in various channels such as opinion polls, discussion forums, and blogs and contact us feature to share their suggestions or feedback on matters of interest.

eGovernment Authority reserves the right to monitor the feedback periodically, but shall not be obligated to monitor and interact with every post. Although eGovernment Authority cannot monitor all postings on the portal, we reserve the right (but assume no obligation) to delete, move, or edit any postings that violate the portal’s terms of use.

eGovernment Authority maintains the right to use the collected feedback from its stakeholders to help in policy making, decision making or piloting new opportunities. eGovernment Authority may publish the results of the consultation, but is not obligated to do so.

In no event will the eGovernment Authority or its employees be legally liable for comments posted on its eParticipation Channels.

Policy Scope

We will seek advises and opinion time to time from the concerned stakeholders on topics / subject matter concerned with the authority functioning, policies and procedures. The scope of these consolations would involve such topics where we need improvement / suggestions / opinions / new ideas etc. The topics will be selected based on the following criteria:

• Relevance of the topics to the areas of function of the authority as well as stakeholders
• Type of stakeholders like G2C, G2G
• Impact to the target stakeholders
• Objective / outcome required on the subject

All topics for eConsultation would be open for public view / comments unless it is specifically targeted for a specific group. In such cases, authority might use appropriate electronic tools to address the specific target groups to get their opinions.

The opinions / advises gathered through this process would be appropriately analyzed and utilized for decision making purposes. The authority is not legally bound to accept any comments /opinions through such processes.

Process cycle

Authority will follow the following general cycle for any eConsultations. The cycle may be modified depending on the need, urgency and the type of topics discussed.

Authority will publish the topics for eConsultation in the eGovernment Portal. The topics for discussion would cover the following:

• A clear objective of the eConsultation for this specific service/issue;
1. The topic description;
2. Potential impacts of the specific topic on the citizens ;
3. information regarding decision makers;
4. The timelines set for consultation
5. Resources to ensure effective participation
• The document will include the guidelines participants should abide by as far as good conduct and proper respectful language
• A description of the terms and conditions for online engagement that promote civil behavior, constructive criticism, active listening and discussion
• Explain the importance of the citizen involvement in the eConsultation and what benefit it will provide;
• Define the age group that are expected to provide their feedback and responses

Authority will create awareness among the target audience for participating in the consultation process by broadcasting the topic through the following various channels like TV, radio, newspapers, journals, conferences, websites, announcements through blogs .
The broadcast message will provide brief information about the topic under consultation, the timelines of the consultation process, the importance of the citizen’s involvement and the expectations from the citizens.
After creating the awareness on the eConsultation topic, the authority will ensure that the topic with its related documentation is available for the participants as per the timeline announced and accessible through the selected eConsultation methods.

Once the topic is open for citizen opinion, the authority will monitor the responses and feedbacks that are posted on the chosen channels and moderate the use of any inappropriate language.
The authority will consolidate all the responses and provide timely feedback for any queries raised by the participants

After the responses are received, the authority would analyze the responses/citizen opinions and appropriate suggestions to the authority for decision making. Once the decisions are taken by the authority, the authority would prepare feedback for responses received based on the decision taken.

The authority will communicate and announce the decision through appropriate online methods.

After successful completion of the eConsultation cycle for every topic, authority will close the topic of discussion until / unless further consultation is required on the topic in future. The authority will maintain a record of the full process cycle for each topic that is being consulted on .The following will be maintained:

• Initial assessment for the eConsultation;
• Documents/communication that was developed for the specific topic;
• Decisions taken by the Authority for response received;
• Statistical records of number of participants; number of responds
• All the issues/problems that came along and how its being solved;

eConsultation tools provided by us

We would use multiple channels as a medium to receive the feedbacks from the citizens. The selection of the media would be based on

• Target population;
• Subject/topic to be consulted on;
• The overall duration of the eConsultation

The Authority is currently providing the following electronic tools for eConsultation:

• eGovernment Blog
• Contact us Form available on eGovernment Portal
• Feedback Form available on eGovernment Mobile Portal
• Polls