As I announced last week, I’m going to be the Vice-Chairperson on the new Healthwatch Leeds Board. Our new chair, Linn Phipps, and myself will be the only appointed board members, ten more people will sit on our Board, and they will be appointed by sortition.
Continuing the conversation about how to ensure proper representation of the views of people in Leeds on the new Healthwatch Leeds Board, I thought I would blog about why I think sortition is the best method, and why we won’t be a membership organisation.
Sortition: what is it?
Lots of people aren’t aware of what sortition means. It’s more usually called “drawing lots”, and it’s familiar to lots of us as the way we might make a decision in a small group “drawing the short straw”. In effect, we’re all used to sortition, as all the people who “play the lottery” are actually participating in sortition!
Sortition first emerged in Athens, the birthplace of democracy, although we wouldn’t want to copy their model entirely, as they excluded all women and many men from their political process.
Power to the people
[The image above shows three men in ancient Greek dress who are holding placards that read “Power to the People!”]
Is sortition the fairest way to select for the Healthwatch Board?
The reason why I think sortition is a fair way to select people to represent views is accurately summarised by Oliver Dowlen in his article that is referenced in the Wikipedia definition of sortition:
Compared to a voting system – even one that is open to all citizens – a citizen-wide lottery scheme for public office lowers the threshold to office. This is because ordinary citizens do not have to compete against more powerful or influential adversaries in order to take office, and because the selection procedure does not favour those who have pre-existing advantages or connections – as invariably happens with election by preference. From an organisational point of view a citizen-wide lottery system gives all citizens an equal stake in the office in question and so defines the size of the active (or potentially active) citizen body
What this means is that by selecting our Board membership by sortition, everyone who puts themselves forward as a volunteer and potential Board member has an equal chance of selection. We don’t think that previous management experience, the number of non-executive directorships held, or our political affiliations are the most important qualities for our Board. What is necessary is that we are all engaged citizens who believe they have something to contribute about health and social care services.
Criticisms of sortition
One of the criticisms of sortition is that there may be some qualities that are necessary pre-conditions for people charged with making decisions, and sortition doesn’t favour anyones experiences over anyone elses. We disagree with this. We will be a fully inclusive organisation, and we will provide all the training and support to our Board to enable their participation: we believe that their lived experiences of using services, or caring for people who use services is far more important to or organisation than any previous Board level experience.
Is Healthwatch Leeds going to be a membership organisation?
Healthwatch Leeds believes that in order to represent the views of all the people of Leeds, we have to ensure there as few barriers to participation as possible. We think that by introducing membership, we would be putting an unnecessary barrier in the way of people who want to participate.
We regard all the people in Leeds to be “members” of Healthwatch Leeds, simply because we all use the services of Leeds: we will represent all of them, not just people who sign up as “members”.
All of our consultation events and engagement efforts must include all the people of Leeds, and we’re going to think hard about how to include everyone in this process. We think that the best way of ensuring that is to continue to ask people to get in touch and let the whole team know how best to go about meeting their needs.
What do you think about this? Are we demonstrating our values through this approach, or do you have a better idea?
Volunteering with @HWLeeds
A very exciting opportunity to volunteer with @HWLeeds is coming up in June: I’ll be blogging more about this nearer the time.
References
BBC History: Athenian Democracy http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml
Dowlen, O. (2009), Sorting Out Sortition: A Perspective on the Random Selection of Political Officers. Political Studies, 57: 298–315. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2008.00746.x [Available online, Accessed 12/05/2013.] See: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.14679248.2008.00746.x/abstract;jsessionid=51BF09AE268C11E0E88D1C88E7951DBD.d03t01
Healthwatch Leeds: Our new Chair http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/news/article/our-new-chair-linn-phipps
Healthwatch Leeds: Our new Vice-Chair http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/news/article/healthwatch-leeds-appoints-claire-jones-vice-chair
Healthwatch Leeds: Our Values http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/content/about
Volunteer with Healthwatch Leeds http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/news/article/volunteering-opportunity
Wikipedia: Sortition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
I am an Occupational Therapist, who writes about health, particularly mental health. I am interested in social media and Web 2.0, and where these technological advances can support wellness and health.
Claireot's Blog 
It’s a real positive in itself that sortition is being tried and getting a bit more of a profile.
It’s a perfect fit for an oversight body like Healthwatch. Having all the board members drawn out of a hat and offered professional back-up so they can do the job well is a great way to try and get the required independence.
So I am confused when you say :
“What this means is that by selecting our Board membership by sortition, everyone who puts themselves forward as a volunteer and potential Board member has an equal chance of selection”.
It sounds like you’re talking about two boards – the one that already has a chair, vice-chair and director appointed to it, and another that’s to be filled by the volunteer randoms.
Can that be right?
Or are we getting just the one board, a sort of sortition-lite where the non-sortitioned professionals don’t just support the randoms, but have a significant voice in their own right.
To be honest, I really hope it works and it’s certainly going to be fun to follow. But you’ve got to admit it makes last week’s Healthwatch Leeds appointment look more bizarre by the day.
(http://theleedscitizen.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/people-of-leeds-get-new-health-champion-out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-old/)
One final point. Given that we’re all members of Healthwatch, couldn’t/shouldn’t the names of everybody on the electoral roll go into the hat? If someone gets drawn and they don’t fancy it, they can just say no and you draw gain.
Thanks for the question, I’m happy to clarify.
The Director post is really the “day-to-day” boss of the staff and volunteers of HWLeeds, so they will be concerned with managing the organisation, the staff, strategic implementation etc.
The Board consists of 12 people. There was a recruitment process for the Chair, who was the best candidate that emerged. I applied for that post, too, and I guess I was the “runner-up” because they offered me the Vice-Chair. I’m getting to know Linn and I think our skills are going to complement each other very well.
The other 10 members of the Board are going to be the people appointed through sortition. The twelve Board members will together set the strategic direction for HWLeeds. The Board will be supported with training and mentoring to ensure they’re all able to participate actively. We hope that our Board members will go on to do other exciting stuff in Leeds after their Board experience.
The Director is not a member of the Board; in fact, she will be answerable to the Board.and this is how we will ensure good governance of the organisation.
It probably seems a little confusing now because until the full Board is appointed, governance is the responsibility of the four consortia partners who won the bid to implement HWLeeds; that is, Touchstone, Leeds Involving People, Inclusion North and Health Together, who are working with our new Chair (and as of last week, me).
I don’t that electoral roll sortition is happening, although it is how Juries are selected, I believe. Many people care deeply about health and social care services and by asking people to put themselves forward, we’re hoping to enable people to self-identify as having a valid contribution to make, who are willing to come to Board meetings or contribute in the way that best fits with their needs.
For more info, see http://www.healthwatchleeds.co.uk/content/about under “Who we are and what we do”
Hope that answers the question, and don’t worry, I’ll keep updating as more of our policies, procedures, events etc. come into focus. It’s still very new to me, too!
Cheers for that, Clare. Think I’ve got it now.
You’re welcome!
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Good to read the arguments re sortition and why it is not a membership organisation. Sortition looks like it has some parallels with the jury system; that, of course, allows the jury to select its own foreperson (or chair). It seems to me there are strong arguments of following that route to allow those appointed by lot to appoint their own chair. I don’t see why appointing by lot from those who have expressed an interest in being a Board member is fairer/more democratic than a membership process. However I wish you well and hope it works.
Thanks for the comment, Stephen!
Yes, to have a fully sortition-appointed Board that then chose the Chair and Vice-Chair would be very radical; but I’m not sure even I would advocate being quite so radical with such an important organisation (and I’m a pretty radical person!)
I’m hoping that we’re looking at a new and innovative way to get more citizens engaged in local health and social care services; with the back-up of some very experienced people who can share their learning and up-skill people who might not have had opportunities like this before.
I hear your view about fairness in contrast with a membership organisation.
Thanks for engaging with the idea and taking the time to comment: suggestions, refinements, arguments against; all are welcome. This is very much a live process, and I’m just one of the people involved, blogging how I see it. What we really want to get to is a solution that means the people of Leeds get the best (most engaging, most effective, most efficient) organisation they can. I’m already enjoying sharing the learning journey to get to that point.