A waste of time and money?
I know it’s an incredibly old-fashioned way of looking at things, but I reckon the best way to find out what people think is to discover where they are, then go and ask them.
Not everyone agrees of course. Whoever conducted this survey, which aimed to find out what young people in Hackney think about crime, preferred to ask their questions regardless of whether anyone was listening.
I’m the first to admit that I’m way out of touch with what kids in Hackney read, what they listen to, where they hang out, and what websites are popular. But I can bet you anything you like that not many of them are going to spend acres of time doing the following things:
- reading the Council’s propaganda mag, Hackney Today. (”Hey, Nish, you seen this campaign to save our local post offices? How cool is that?”)
- trawling through the Hackney’s Consultation Finder. (”Jase! Jase! Look at this! It says here that “Hackney Local Authority are currently preparing a series of planning policy documents which will form part of the Local Development Framework (LDF). The LDF sets out the future direction of land use, development and regeneration in the Borough.” And they want to know what we think about it!”)
- reading the Hackney Young People Empowered (HYPE) website. I’m willing to be proved wrong, and to hear that this very worthy and useful site is straining under excessive server load. But if I learned one thing when I worked with kids, they prefer to create their own spaces on the web.
Sadly, the mastermind behind the “Young people’s attitude towards crime” survey thought differently, and that’s exactly where they tried to drum up custom:
It was decided to design an electronic survey consisting of a variety of open and closed questions. The survey was posted on the internet, with the link being publicised through Hackney Today, Consultation Finder (Council’s website) and the HYPE website (a dedicated website for young people).
Surprise, surprise, the Council wasn’t exactly inundated with responses. In a period when crime is one of the most pressing issues facing young people in the borough; and in which several teenagers have been murdered; guess how many took part in this ill-conceived survey?
Twenty-three.
Nor did all of the twenty-three manage to answer every question. That was more like eleven.
So what did this triumphant bit of research find? I’ll cut through the crap and summarise it for you:
- Most kids are worried about crime;
- Five kids said they’d been victims of crime;
- Peer pressure is seen as a problem;
- Families are thought to be the best people to help keep kids on the straight and narrow.
I could go on, but it would be pointless. As the report points out:
In using this data, a note of caution is suggested by Consultation Team based on the low level of response received. The results therefore may not be truly representative of the views of young people in Hackney.
Of course they aren’t representative of the views of young people in Hackney. Apart from the fact hardly anyone filled in the questionnaire, there’s another tasty morsel tucked at the back of the report…
Only eleven young people said they lived in Hackney.
So, in return for a month-long consultation, we’ve got a report crammed with things we knew already, based on the views of eleven confirmed Hackney residents. And I bet it didn’t come cheap.
I might just find out how much it costs. After all, I know the right person to ask.
Published on 8th May, 2008
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