MD2535 Talk London Website Redesign

1. 1.1 Talk London is City Hall’s online community, placing Londoners’ needs at the centre of strategies and programmes by involving citizens in meaningful research, debate and consultation about how to improve the capital.
2. 1.2 Talk London has almost 50,000 members and has delivered 12,000 responses to City Hall statutory consultations; involved thousands of members in GLA policy development and the design of products and services; and secured input to London Assembly committee investigations, at no additional cost to policy teams.
3. 1.3 In June 2018, MD2300 gave permission for Talk London to deliver projects that would grow our user base to ensure it better reflects London’s population (for example by attracting more young Londoners (16-24), BAME Londoners and social renters) . We have demonstrated that our actions in the last 12 months, including The London Budget Challenge campaign, testing a more compelling homepage, lowering the sign up age to 16, and outreach activity for the Priorities for Londoners survey have achieved greater numbers of people from these groups joining the community.
4. 1.4 Recent stakeholder and user research provided up-to-date insights as to the needs of our users, and we now wish to refresh the design and functionality of Talk London to make it easier and more appealing for all Londoners to take part. In order to make further progress, we are now seeking approval for funding to support the delivery of a website design refresh and supporting advertising and campaign spend, as follows:

1. 1.5 Procurement of digital agencies, development agencies and will take place through existing frameworks and processes, as appropriate.
2. 1.6 We anticipate this funding would enable the redesign and development work over an 8-10 month period. We would be continuously testing, iterating and working in an agile way to make sure that the new designs and functionality resonate with our audience.

• A full redesign and new functionality for the Talk London website, taking into account user experience and interaction design, and the need to visually appeal to a more diverse audience.
• The redesign will also assess website accessibility standards, updating the Talk London website where necessary to ensure that it is accessible.
• The website’s content management software will be upgraded concurrently with the redesign.
• Delivery of ongoing, targeted advertising and outreach supporting the engagement work plan and in order to acquire new Talk London members.
• This is all in support of the Talk London goal of making the audience as reflective of London as possible through acquiring more of our under-represented audiences and increasing the Talk London membership so that more Londoners can have a say in City Hall policies and programmes.

3.1. Under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the Mayor of London must have ‘due regard’ of the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation as well as to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.
3.2. The website redesign will ensure the Talk London site is more appealing to a diverse audience and that it is easier to take part. Demographic information collected on registration will ensure we are aware who joins and participates in Talk London and, will inform our acquisition strategy and our site redesign.
3.3. During the design refresh, the Talk London site will be brought in line with the latest accessibility regulations, which we need to comply with by September 2020.

4.1. Risks and issues: Talk London was established to gather Londoners’ views to help steer important policy decisions. It is therefore important that we reach and engage Londoners from all walks of life in our work. The site redesign will specifically monitor participation rates from different audiences and a test, learn and iterate approach will mitigate the risk that the site will not appeal to a diverse audience. Our acquisition and outreach will target those audiences we are underrepresented on, to bolster numbers of those who are traditionally harder to reach and mitigate risks involved in not engaging with broad sections of the community.
4.2. Linked projects: London.gov is currently running a discovery project and learnings from the Talk London design refresh and testing will feed into this process, helping to inform the discovery and future integration.
4.3. GDPR: The Talk London team will work with the appropriate GLA data protection officer to ensure that all updates to Talk London are GDPR compliant.
4.4. Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities: The Mayor has stated that he wants to lead the most engaged, transparent administration seem at City Hall. The Talk London community ensures we allow Londoners to participate in the design, development and delivery of strategies, policies, interventions and services. Part of the Talk London work will support high-profile engagement activities from across all policy departments at the GLA and MOPAC.
4.5. Conflicts of interest: There are no conflicts of interest to note for any of those involved in the drafting or clearance of the decision.

5.1 Approval is being sought for expenditure of up to £240,000 (profiled as £180k 2019/20 and £60k 2020/21) to support the delivery of a refreshed design for Talk London and new functionality. This expenditure will be funded by the 2019-20 Talk London Budget, held within the Intelligence Unit.

Powers
6.1 The foregoing sections of this report indicate that the decisions requested of the Mayor fall within the statutory powers of the Authority to promote and/or to do anything which is facilitative of or conducive or incidental to social development within Greater London and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:
(a) pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
(b) consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and
(c) consult with appropriate bodies.
6.2 In taking the decisions requested of him, the Mayor must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.
Procurement
6.3 This decision requests authority to expend up to £240,000 to refresh the design of the Authority’s Talk London website and associated project-specific activities. To that end, the officers must ensure that all procurements related to the said project comply with the Authority’s contracts and funding code and that they be conducted in consultation with Transport for London’s procurement team.
6.4 Also, the officers must ensure that legal agreements be put in place between the service providers and the Authority, before the service providers commence work on the project.

7.1. Project sponsorship is provided by Dr Nick Bowes. Selina Holliday (Talk London Digital Engagement & Product Manager) will manage the project, working closely with colleagues from Digital, Marketing and TG.

None