Data collection and analysis
Reactions to the Spending Review
Overview of #localgov
from June 2013 to June 2014
Local government funding in the UK budget process 2013-14
- Data collection started on 20/6/2013 a week before the Spending Review announcement and was completed on 20/6/2014.
- Tweets were captured with the help of Chorus Analytics, a social media capturing and visualisation suite.
- Initial dataset includes 146,981 tweets by 26,909 accounts.
- Analysis used a combination of structural (links, hashtags, mentions), keyword frequency and co-occurrence, sentiment classification using SentiStrengh.
- To filter tweets relevant to budget discussions and service reform we used a lexicon of 63 keywords based on a keyword frequency (e.g. "cuts"). 75,601 tweets by 17,146 different accounts remained.
- The Spending Review generated significant attention with commentaries, responses and predictions.
- Popular tweets by important actors and journalists exemplified the cuts and emphasised their impact:
- “This cut will stretch essential services to breaking point in many areas LGA Chair @Sir_MRC responds to #SR13 announcement" by the Local Government Association
- “From budget cuts to council tax freezes we draw together the main points on #localgov from the #SpendingReview http://…” by the Guardian Local Government Network
- “#Yorkshire councils expecting to lose further 300m. That’s enough to support 1200 libraries or 9000 social workers”.
- Local government officers and councillors voiced their concerns:
- “Osborne confirms that #localgov will receive another slash in funding of 10. How much more can frontline services take #SR13”
- “Council tax freeze will mean MORE than 10 cut for #localgov”
- A smaller number of tweets directly discussed reshaping servives and ways forward:
- “#localgov and #voluntarysector can form alliances to protect serve and speak up for shared communities. My article: http://…”).
- “Catch up on our discussion on encouraging innovation in #adultsocialcare #localgov http://…”
- Average daily activity on weekdays 400-550 tweets
- Much less activity during weekends
- Average sentiment relatively neutral with small fluctuations
- About 60-70% of daily tweets contain URLs
986 tweets, EU and local government elections
958 tweets
popular petition
760 tweets
Budget 2014
936 tweets, New Local Government Network event and bad weather
positive peak
Autumn statement
822 tweets
Spending Review
1,178 tweets
#OurDay
1,550 tweets
negative peak
Three major budget events in the UK parliamentary calendar 2013/14:
- June 2013 --> Spending Review
- December 2013 --> Autumn Statement
- March 2014 --> Budget announcement
Background: local government in England
- Employs 1.8m people across 353 authorities. There is high institutional diversity and complicated funding schemes.
- About 70% of local funding comes from the central government.
- The Local Government Association is the official representative body but many groups influence policy making.
- Central-local relationships in England have been traditionally tense, especially when the Conservative party is in government.
- The coalition government has been implementing cuts at the levels of 26% for local government in the period 2011-2015.
Reactions to the Autumn statement and the Budget announcement
The #localgov community
- The Autumn Statement contained less strong implications for local government:
- “The main news for #localgov in #as2013 was all the bad news was used up in June and July.”
- “#AutumnStatement implications for #localgov Councils exempt from cuts but expected to freeze council tax: http://…”
- Except specific reactions for council housing announcements:
- “Osborne: Housing revenue account borrowing limit increased by 300m #localgov”
- “AS2013: Osborne fails to remove housing borrowing cap http://… #localgov”
- The Budget announcement had no more "surprises" but bad news for public sector salaries:
- Budget 2014: what can councils expect http://… #localgov #Budget2014
- Budget 2014: Budget a double whammy for local government workers - http://… #Budget2014 #localgov
Implications for local government
- #localgov is the most popular Twitter space used by professionals involved in different aspects of local government in the UK (e.g. policy actors, officers, councillors, service providers, consultants and journalists).
- Messages tagged with #localgov are indicative of the general sentiment and issues in local government.
- #localgov in the account description for
- Hashtags usually form ad hoc around specific events like national
elections, emergencies or popular television shows.
- For professional networking, hashtags can share some of the characteristics of a community of practice.
- Twitter is one of the spaces where local government actors process the cuts in the lack of official consultations.
- Contributions to #localgov reflect actual processes of institutional change --> not an exercise in the "crowds".
- Twitter's conversational features facilitate ad hoc communities and enable cross-service interaction, new initiatives and the self-organising of local government entrepreneurs.
- However, interaction between central and local government actors remain limited, reflecting the more traditional landscape in England.
Informal sharing networks in the
public sector
#Localgov networks following keyword filtering
Clustered network of 167 accounts mentioned at least 10 times for filtered tweets excluding RTs
50 most mentioned accounts including RTs
52 most mentioned accounts excluding RTs
- Informal knowledge networks in the public sector are important yet challenging to establish in an institutionalised environment.
- Public sector professionals share insights about their work of government and discuss policy issues on social media.
- These informal sharing networks often act as a source of innovation in government agencies.
- Through institutional sharing, networks reflect actual processes of change or forthcoming trends in the public sector.
Clustered networked for accounts mentioned at least 10 times
(including RTs)
Green cluster mainly accounts outside the UK
Main observations from #localgov
Government crowdsourcing
- #Localgov shows the importance of endogenous sources of expert crowdsourcing in the public sector.
- The evolution of messages and interactions shows significant activity over one year in the context of budget reductions and service reform.
- Existing policy communities and influential actors share information as the main hubs in the network but discussions are not centralised.
- London actors are more represented although accounts include local government professionals from all over the UK and outside.
- Governments can now source a large amount of potential solutions to public management problems.
- Examples: challenge.gov or the Red Tape Challenge in the UK
- Social media are more ad hoc form of crowdsourcing either by asking for input or monitoring in a passive way.
- Most of crowdsourcing research focuses on citizen-government information flows and takes a generic approach of the crowds.
- Literature on crowdsourcing suggests that important contributions usually come from experts in the crowds.
How UK local government actors reacted to 2013 central spending decisions: the #localgov Twitter community
Panos Panagiotopoulos, Dennis De Widt and Martin Laffin