did everyone know the department of health is 'in partnership' with Mumsnet?

[edam]

Apparently the government is working in partnership with MN to 'allow users to provide feedback' on maternity care.

According to a govt plan for the NHS over the next five years 'NHS 2010?2015: from good to great.'

I didn't know about this - anyone else? MN HQ?

Sounds like a jolly good idea but not sure posters consider themselves 'partners' of the government...

I said a while ago that MN were in danger of appearing to be in support of on or other political party before the election.

Surely, people on MN can make comments on maternity care or indeed any aspect of parenting and Ministers and Civil servants can read those comments without it being in 'partnership' with Govt?

I don't think that there is any danger of MN seeming to support one party rather than another. But I do feel that increasingly MN (as an enterprise rather than as a body of users) has a very very strong interest in appearing politically engaged and in seeking to be engaged with governemntal structures. The whole 'Mumsnet election' thing brought them a publicity hike, and their campaigning on a range of issues dovetails with partnerships like the one in the OP, and with initiatives like David Cameron's suggestion of govt-produced leaflets promoting MN (and some other sites) to new parents.

Nothing wrong with MN pursuing its business objectives in tandem with the social campaigns that it supports (and a strong chance that it will do some good in the process). But I really think that it is way past the time when MN should produce some sort of onsite statements and structures that amount to a declaration of interest and allow people who are simply posters on a forum not to feel that they are, by their numbers or their posts, giving support to partnerships that MN might be pursuing.

Increasingly MN is two things: a community (loosely!) of posters, and a lobbying organisation with objectives determined from the centre (with informal consultation of interested users but without any real consultative procedures that amount to anything like a mandate). I really think that their should be proper structures to support that dual role. The campaigning arm could be immensely strengthened, and the talk forum would not be pulled into being grist to mills it was unawre were grinding.

watching with interest

The govt document edam refers to is at www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/@sta/@perf/documents/digital asset/dh_109887.pdf

It says that the dept of health will be "working to extend our partnership with Mumsnet to allow its users to supply feedback on the maternity care they have received."

As edam says, this could be a good thing. But the difficulty is in the phrase 'partnership with Mumsnet'. That is only accurate if Mumsnet is taken to mean the organisation itself, not the usership of the forum. And in general I think that MN is failing to make that distinction clear. That didn't matter in the past because all there was, really, was a big barn and lots of women shouting in it. But now there is the big barn plus a range of initiatives and potential partnerships arranged by MNHQ.

There is nothing sinister or bad about that, but although these initiatives take some guidance from threads, they can't be presented as an organic development from forum conversations. And that is how they are currently being presented. E.g. on the About page: "Mumsnet is a community and is not a lobby group. We ... have no political axe to grind. That said our members are very active when it comes to something they feel strongly about."

Why don't we have a specific Campaigns and Partnerships Topic, with a clear top-of-page statement of MN's legitimate business objectives, and with site tools to allow more structured consultation on campaigning. Anyone who chose to participate there would be aware of the uses to which their contributions would be put, and they would be consulted more effectively than they can be in the odd unstructured thread. There could be polls, panels, sign-ups for campaigns and partnership e-alerts, and whatever else. Then when MN purported to be speaking for the usership, it would only be gaining validation from users who were interested and had been properly informed and consulted.

It might take a bit of trouble to set up, but the campaigning theme and the political webchats have been very popular. It would be a shame to spoil the ship for a ha'peth of tar.

thanks for providing the link, deadworm, I was posting in haste and got distracted by the phone.

I do think it's a really good thing for the DH to look at what MN posters have to say about the way they are treated by maternity services, good and bad. Have often thought, when listening to a minister talking about commitment to maternity or b/f rates or whatever 'if only you logged on to MN you'd see the world is very different than the view from Whitehall'. Patient surveys just don't give you the same feeling for what is actually happening out there.

But I just wondered a. whether DH had cleared this with MN HQ, b. if I'd missed something and c. what MNers thought about it. Oh, and d. when is it going to happen?

there is some info on campaigns here which directs to a thread about campaigns which is the main discussion board at the mo for campaign-related chatter

Sorry but I just think this is naieve. This wilL be touted as MN supporting a Govt initiative.

I don't think it looks like that

There IS no initiative is there?

It is just another avenue of public feedback that is being used - they are rolling out all sorts of public consultations

I guess when/if it HAPPENED then we would discuss it then

No, I don't thinnk it looks like that either. MNHQ has a link on the About page to the David Cameron proposal that his govt would produce leaflets promoting MN and other parenting sites to new parents. I think they are equally ready to look at parnterships with either party. I also think they have a (legitimate) financial interest in such partnerships, and that the primary pressure to develop them is from MNHQ, not the talk forum usership. Which is fair enough, of course. So long as everything is clear.

Isn't it to do with this thread?

I think I've finally put my finger on what bugs me.

MN speaks of its membership as the source of its activities. But it hasn't got a membership. Not in the sense that other campaigning organisations do. Membership in the usual third-sector sense means that you have joined up to a body that has some sort of constitution defining membership status, laying out the structure of consultations, meetings, etc, and stating the ways in which the governing body is accountable to its membership.

MN has a usergroup -- people who have set up a login. That's all. It is unfortunate that the term 'membership' can cover both these statuses, because that is the equivocation that imo presents a problem.

I think it is an important problem when it comes to MN having potentially quite significant roles in govt partnerships. It doesn't really have the kind of member-conferred authority that its current high profile seems to be gaining for it.

btw, that piece of campaigns text that MP linked to speaks of the MN 'membership' as 850 000. Isn't that the number of unique monthly visitors? Rather than the number of registered users?

Surely that is stretching the notion of membership very thin indeed. But even if you only count registered users, that is still a very thin concept of membership. It is not what is generally meant by 'membership' of campaigning organisations. and yet MN says that 'our value as a campaigning organisation is in our members'.

Perhaps MN should set up some sort of membership-based campaigns arm.

Threadie (is that you?) I have been questioning this quote of "850,000 members" for months now. Everyone else seems perfectly happy to let it slide. It niggles me something rotten.

Like you, I wish we could have some kind of statement from mnhq. All this media interest, which hasn't come from nowhere, and no comment from our esteemed founders as to what the aim/purpose is (perhaps they think it should be obvious, but it isn't to me ).

No one ever answers about the Membership thing. I have asked on three or four threads within the past month alone. Perhaps they now will as its you asking .

It niggles me something rotten too. Is MN claiming to speak for 850 000 people just on the grounds that they have clicked on a webpage? On that basis Stephen Fry should be king. If they are speaking for 850 000 people, how many of those knew about the Campaigns and Alliances thread and had a chance to make their views felt? How many of them participated in the political chats? etc etc.

Even as a hardened regular, I don't consider myself a 'member' of MN, in the sense I mentioned in an earlier post (constitution, meetings, accountable governing body). And yet I am one of the people making up the numbers that give it the authority to campaign.

My personal grudge is not that I dislike MN reaching out to the Royal College of Midwives or whoever. I'm sure that is potentially valuable. It is the prospect of them entering partnership arrangements with govt, which the campaigning role (and the webchat-generated political high profile) helps to position them for. I have had enough experience in my working life of third-sector groups becoming rather Frankenstein affairs in order to get pennies from a nominal engagement with public service provision which in effect just serves as a faux-communitarian figleaf for the inadequacy of state provision.

RobinThreadbreast - agree with what you are saying there. Seen very similar happen with academic institutions being dangled a bit of research funding and used in the same way.

Do not want to appear critical of MNHQ because I enjoy MN and the media exposure could do a lot of good. They just need to be careful. One day this media exposure is going to turn round and bite and maybe in a way that few posters who posted in good faith will get badly hurt by.

The MN founders are journalists so I'm sure they know what they are getting into. (No disrespect to my fellow hacks here, btw, just that they are probably not naive about the media.)

Suspect govt. could be overplaying it too - going on about 'partnership' when what they actually mean is taking some form of account of feedback from MN i.e. what people say on threads about maternity services which would be A Jolly Good Thing. Those in power might notice that 85% of HVs talk bollocks about b/f and midwives and HVs only have to have a one hour lecture in it before they are let loose on new mothers, for instance.

Or (radical idea) think about funding CPD for HVs so they can keep up to date i.e. notice things have changed a bit since the 1970s wrt knowledge of b/f.

It seems that very few of us are interested in all this.

Yes, it could well be that govt is massively overplaying its potential partnership with MN, and once all the excessive media interest dies down MN can get on with its own objectives more steadily, reaching out constructively to lots of organisations of interest without being fast-tracked into an influence that outruns its real mandate.

I think the whole 'Mumsnet election' thing, and appearing all over the press and radio and television the other week was a bit damaging and overheated. Perhaps things will settle down now.

Whoops, x-post bibbity. Yes, most people don't seem exercised by these issues so I should prob shut up.

You know what it reminds me of? Living in a nice village and having the landowner round the corner suddenly apply for planning permission for a new development. You feel really invested in the local landscape, very much a stakeholder. But of course you aren't, really, in any position to have a more than a tiny tiny say in what happens to the lovely woods, footpaths, etc. So you get all curmudgeonly and Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

Jeez Louise - have only just noticed this! You're right about the members thing - that's just an error - it's 850 000 unique visitors a month not registered members - that's around 270k. (Although our unique visitors for Nov were over a million, so that stats out of date anyway.) We'll change that page right away - thanks for the heads up.

Thanks also for your comments re this DoH partnership - as far as I know (and Carrie will clarify because she was in the meeting with the civil servants, not me) it is centred around MN being used for dissemination of information - eg about hospitals etc - via MN local. Clearly it's a partnership in one sense but not really a political one - more a practical one.

It's the same idea as the Tories really - using existing channels to disseminate info rather than building expensive stand alone ones. Makes obvious sense and we see no reason not to be involved.

But your comments are interesting and useful - this is new territory for us - working with government that is - and so we are in the process of working out what makes sense structure-wise.

Ok so Carrie has just confirmed that this is what's been agreed with the DoH:

We have an agreement in principle to help them get feedback on hospital, GP's and maternity services. This is a technical work in progress and will involve having some sort of widget on Local which will allow us to offer feedback that will appear both on MN and on NHS websites. No real money in it, small amount given to cover tech costs, but it should be useful for Mnetters as well as useful to gov to improve services.

Thank you very much for getting back on this Justine. (I feel a tiny bit cynical about whether the feedback to DoH could be good quality data, rather than just an opportunity for govt to seem like it is consulting effectively. But I think I'm likely to be outnumbered massively on that one. )

Do you take my point about the ambiguity involved in speaking of a membership? We aren't like members of, e.g. World Wildlife Fund, or whatever, in that we haven't signed up because of shared campaigning beliefs, and we don't have a formal status that generates effective consultation or the formal accountability of MNHQ. That creates the danger that you use your usership as a rather unreliable grounds for your influence.

I think that the campaigning developments are great and have been very popular, but I just think that some more formal tools (eg effective polls, a sign-up to campaigns 'membership,' some structural separation from the general talkboard, plenty of signalling about what comes from the centre and what is the result of effective consultation of users, etc) whould give you a slightly more authentic mandate and avoid antagonising people who say 'Hang on, I registered so I could ask whether guinea pigs could eat tomatoes, not to endorse any campaign.'

I do take the point re membership yes - we don't normally cite members, rather users, this instance was simply an error.

In general we aren't aiming to do things that could be classed as aligning ourselves politically - obviously you'd never get a MN consensus re that! Instead we want to exert pressure in the areas where it's clear there is pretty much unanimous agreement amongst Mumsnetters like miscarriage, or improving breastfeeding support.

In general I think it would be a great shame not to get involved when we are being asked to contribute in shaping policy in these areas. As for cynical PR moves - I don't really care so long as it gets better treatment of women who miscarry and more support for breastfeeding mums - and I do think we are in a position to exert pressure and not simply be used. There has to be some advantage to being in the media spotlight . But I might well be a simpleton...

Well, I'm sure you aren't a simpleton.

Thank you for replying. I agree that it would be a shame not to get involved with other campaigning organisations. I just feel really cagey about how you cite the grounds for your involvement. I would very much prefer it if you did not conceive of it as endorsed by the usership, except to the extent that it has actually been shaped by effective consultation with reasonable numbers of them. I just dislike the lack of clarity. Of the 270k registered users, how many even know what you are doing?

I would prefer it if you just said 'We (MNHQ) want to do this because it is a good idea.' Otherwise I feel used, and that is a bad feeling, even when the objectives you are pursuing are good ones. And there should be as much clarity as possible about what is coming from the centre and what is coming from posters.

Threadie, I am so very grateful that you are able to articulate what I feel so very well. From moldies onwards, I just find myself agreeing with everything you say (that I happen to see). I have had to force myself to say this for fear of coming over too stalkerish. Which I am not.