Problems and Purpose

The main goal of the citizens’ jury was to answer the questions ‘What does Birmingham need and want from its museums now and in the future, and what should Birmingham Museums Trust do to make these things happen?’ Museums and other cultural institutions have often faced criticism for their lack of significant public involvement in governance and decision-making procedures. Conventional consultation techniques often rely on self-selection, which limits representativeness and hinders organisations' capacity to collect diverse and well-informed public viewpoints. However, democratic innovations like citizens’ juries were designed to help improve legitimacy and participation [1,p.1] The Birmingham Museums Trust created the Birmingham Museums Citizens' Jury in collaboration with Shared Future and DemocracyNext in response to the expanding discussions surrounding accessibility, inclusiveness, community involvement, and democratic legitimacy within cultural governance [2]. Their process aimed to provide a structured form of deliberative participation that is capable of producing informed recommendations from the public to help the future role of museums in Birmingham. This citizens’ jury also aimed to strengthen the community involvement and ensure that the decision making reflected a wider range of Birmingham residents opposed to only people who attended museums currently [2].

This Citizens Jury was designed to assist participants in navigating complex problems about museum accessibility, funding, representation, and public value through facilitated discussion and expert evidence. The main question in this process was "What does Birmingham need and want from its museums now and in the future, and what should Birmingham Museums Trust do to make these things happen?”In general, the process represented broader movements toward participatory governance in public institutions, where deliberative democratic processes are increasingly being used to boost institutional legitimacy, develop informed suggestions, and promote long-term civic involvement [3,p.1].

Background History and Context

History and demographics

Birmingham is one of the first ‘super diverse’ cities in the UK and is central in the Industrial Revolution of the UK [4]. This demographic complexity and industrial history makes it a good area for testing participatory and deliberative governance in diverse urban settings.

Due to its development being centred on the Industrial Revolution, Birmingham generated long-term patterns of labour migration. This positioned the city as dependent on migration for economic growth. During the post-industrial period and deindustrialisation there was economic instability and restructuring, leading to some areas experiencing regeneration and some experiencing severe deprivation. As a result, the urban landscape became geographically unequal, with uneven access to public services and infrastructure across neighbourhoods [5]

Birmingham is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the UK and has no ethnic majority [4]. This demographic structure can reflect the multiple waves of migration Birmingham has had, starting from the Industrial Revolution, Commonwealth migration post-war and recent migration. This diversity over time became not only a cultural aspect of Birmingham but institutional, thus shaping the population's expectations of representation and public engagement [6, p682-684].

Birmingham also has a younger population than the national average, which highlights the need of inclusive cultural and civic institutions in developing long-term public involvement. 46% of the population of Birmingham are under 30, in comparison to only 37% across the UK (as of 2022) [7]. Over time, Birmingham's diversity became not only a cultural but also an institutional factor, influencing representation and public participation requirements. In a city characterised by significant ethnic diversity and socioeconomic inequality, representativeness in deliberative processes is especially crucial, as unequal access to participation can worsen existing social exclusion. To ensure representation justice is achieved in decision making, recognition of power differences between different social classes should be carefully considered throughout deliberative processes [8,p 2]. Birmingham's demographic diversity made it an ideal place for testing participatory governance systems like citizens' juries within cultural institutions.

Financial and Political Instability

During a time of severe financial instability and declining confidence in local government institutions, Birmingham Museums Trust developed participatory governance. Birmingham City Council faced extreme financial strain in the 2010s and early 2020s, which led to bankruptcy filings and heightened scrutiny of public spending priorities [9]. These financial issues were a reflection of larger austerity measures that diminished local governments' ability throughout the United Kingdom, disproportionately impacting public infrastructure and community services [10].During this time, cultural institutions were especially prone to budget cuts and political criticism because museums are mostly non-governmental services. Due to this, museums became political institutions. This meant that discussions on museums were not just cultural; they also addressed more general issues of public value, accessibility, and accountability in times of economic distress. Participants in the citizens' jury recognised conflicts between addressing the city's broader financial issues and protecting cultural institutions. Deliberative processes are particularly crucial during times of institutional crises because they may strengthen democratic legitimacy by directly involving citizens in difficult decision-making. It also allows for a new approach for the public to help solve important policy issues [11]. The Birmingham Museums citizens' jury developed in a wider context of political distrust and economic instability, highlighting the need of participatory governance methods in preserving institutional legitimacy.

Birmingham Museums Trust

Birmingham Museums Trust was created in 2012 after Birmingham City Council transferred museum services to an independent charitable trust structure. The company oversees nine museums and heritage sites throughout the city, including Birmingham Museums Trust locations including Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum, Aston Hall, and Sarehole Mill [12]. The Trust is responsible for almost one million objects and archives, making it one of the largest regional museum institutions in the United Kingdom. However, the institution's size presented major challenges for financial sustainability, accessibility, and long-term public engagement. Birmingham Museums Trust also participated in larger discussions about inclusion, representation, and decolonisation in museums. Cultural organisations are increasingly expected to become more participative, representative, and socially accountable, rather than simply acting as conventional heritage institutions. Data from the citizens' jury revealed that participants struggled to discuss all museum sites equally within deliberation sessions, showing the Trust's institutional complexity. This shows that the size and diversity of Birmingham Museums Trust influenced not only the design of discussion, but also members' ability to engage equally in all elements of institutional governance.

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

The Birmingham Museums Citizens' Jury was organised in collaboration with Birmingham Museums Trust, Shared Future CIC, and DemocracyNext. The Birmingham Museums Trust commissioned the process to gather informed public recommendations regarding the future role of museums within the city, and Shared Future CIC led the design and facilitation of the deliberative process [2]. According to the independent evaluator Isabella Roberts, Birmingham Museums Trust had limited prior experience with deliberative democratic processes and therefore “largely left the design and delivery to Shared Future” [13]. Shared Future is a professional participation and facilitation organisation and played an important role in structuring this process through organising discussions, coordinating debates, and managing participant contact throughout the process. This collaborative approach ensured that the jury remained structured, professionally managed, and inclusive throughout the entire process.

The Citizens’ Jury was supported through external oversight and independent evaluation, which aimed to strengthen the legitimacy and transparency. DemocracyNext were “acting advisors to this process” and had persuaded Birmingham Museums Trust to use an independent evaluator as it was their first time running a Citizens’ Jury [13]. Organisers also attempted to ensure inclusivity across age, gender, race, religion, geography, and socioeconomic status using stratified participant recruiting and accessibility procedures, which will be discussed following. The evaluator commented that there was "a strong effort to ensure representation" and highlighted examples such as the availability of prayer spaces for people with religious needs [13]. Furthermore, participants were financially compensated in an attempt to minimise any barriers to participation, which the evaluator claimed helped to include those who "otherwise couldn't take part [13]." However, despite efforts to ensure institutional independence and inclusivity, Birmingham Museums Trust had the final say on whether suggestions would be followed. This reflects a broader restriction usually linked with deliberative democratic processes, as "the recommendations produced have an advisory role and compete with advice from other groups" [14, p 4] [15,16,17].

The process received financial backing from the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of a larger £250,000 business planning package, with the Citizens' Jury costing roughly £65,000 [18]. DemocracyNext had stated that “the process cost is an investment not an expense”, this emphasises the long-term democratic and institutional need of public opinion in museum governance [18]. The funds allowed for participant recruiting, accessibility support, facilitation, and the organisation of both online and in-person sessions. However,the process still operated under significant organisational pressures. Isabella Roberts described the process as having "a very quick turnaround," although some facilitators apparently felt "underpaid," showing persistent resource constraints [13]. This shows how Citizens Juries are resource-intensive democratic processes that require significant planning, facilitation, institutional coordination, and are often “more costly than other methods of consultation” [19], [20, 21p 51].

Participant Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment and selection process

The Birmingham Museums Citizens' Jury selected candidates using a stratified sortition process aimed to achieve a demographic balance. Around 5,000 letters of invitation were issued throughout Birmingham, resulting in 87 answers. From these, 28 participants were chosen to reflect major population characteristics such as age, ethnicity, region, socioeconomic background, and disability status [2]. Isabella Roberts, the independent evaluator, stated that “participants were recruited using sortition, so invitations were sent out widely, and then people responded and were selected to reflect the population [13].” This approach attempts to remove the self-selection bias associated with open participation models. Random selection paired with stratification improves representativeness and democratic legitimacy by ensuring the inclusion of a more diverse cross-section of society, as seen in the Oregon CIR [22, p269]. The evaluator said that "representativeness was the primary reason" for using a citizens' jury format, stating that open participation leads to self-selection among "people who have time, interest, or resources," whereas sortition creates a more representative sample of the population [13].

Inclusion and accessibility measures

Several types of methods were used to promote inclusion and engagement across a wide range of requirements and circumstances. These included participant compensation, childcare, accessibility adjustments, prayer spaces, and hybrid participation. Facilitators guaranteed that participants with special requirements were accommodated, including the availability of prayer rooms [13]. One participant reported feeling "very comfortable despite initially feeling self-conscious about wearing religious clothing," implying that such measures improved the participant experience [13].

Citizens' juries are described as allowing "a demographically representative sample of the population" to deliberate on contested issues, while inclusion is framed as a type of "structural inclusion," in which participation is supported by institutional and practical arrangements rather than relying solely on recruitment equality [6, p1]. Overall, inclusion was supported by both logistical support and facilitation practice, however it required continuous management throughout the process rather than being entirely secured at the recruitment stage.

Representational Outcomes and Demographic Balance

A comparison of the final participant demographics and recruitment targets indicates that stratified sortition created a mini-public that was widely representative. The jury's 48.3% male and 48.3% female participants nearly matched the recruiting targets, which were 48.7% male and 50.7% female. With 20.7% of participants identifying as disabled compared to a target of 20.3%, disability representation was also accurate. In general, ethnic representation matched population goals. For Asian or Asian British participants, this was exact at 31.0%. There were still some differences, though. Participants in the 20–24 and 25–34 age groups were somewhat over-represented, while those in the 65+ age group were under-represented (13.8% versus a target of 16.9%). Additionally, educational attainment was biased toward higher qualification levels, showing that despite stratified recruiting, structural participation inequalities remained [2].

Limitations of Representation

Despite stratified recruiting and inclusion methods, some representational disparities remained. The most noticeable under-represented group was middle-aged individuals with full-time jobs and caring duties. Roberts noted that "the main missing group was middle-aged people with full-time jobs and family commitments," who were less likely to reply to invitations or maintain involvement due to time restrictions [13]. This created a group that was skewed towards younger people and retired people. This pattern can reflect broader structural inequalities which can change people's abilities to participate in democratic processes, especially in relation to time, labour and caregiving responsibilities.

Retention of participants was also a limitation. Roberts mentioned that “some people dropped out before the end.” This suggests that participation was unequal during the duration of the process [13]. This can show that while sortition improves initial representativeness, it doesn’t fully address the limitations of sustained engagement.

Methods and Tools Used

The Birmingham Museums Citizens' Jury was supported by a structured deliberative structure that included expert input, moderated conversation, and continuous recommendation-building. Shared Future led the process, which included procedural design, facilitation, and coordination for both in-person and online sessions. This guaranteed adherence to recognised deliberative practice while allowing for flexibility in delivery. The evaluator highlighted a "very quick turnaround," indicating that execution, design, and delivery were organised, requiring effective cooperation across all operational stages [13]. A sequenced model of interaction was used for the deliberative design.

At the start of each session, there was structured expert testimony that gave people easily accessible evidence and background on museums, government, and public value. Following that, there was assisted small-group conversation, which allowed participants to explore themes in depth and form preliminary positions in a less stressful environment. The results of these groups were then presented in plenary sessions, when ideas were contrasted, questioned, and polished collectively [2]. Facilitators served as neutral moderators, controlling discussion flow, guaranteeing equitable contributions, and maintaining focus on the key question through. Rather than producing recommendations at a single endpoint, participants developed and refined proposals across multiple sessions in response to new information and collective reflection. Roberts stated that "after the final session, participants had time to reflect and then vote on the recommendations," suggesting a deliberate separation of reflection and final judgement [13].

This deliberative stage was intended to strengthen reasoned decision-making. The goal of this reflective stage was to improve decision-making and reduce immediacy bias. By encouraging reflective thinking, information processing, and reasoned judgement rather than reactive opinion formation, organised deliberative formats can enhance epistemic quality. This can be seen in the jury's phased facilitation design. This is consistent with broader trends in the use of deliberative democratic procedures to strengthen institutional legitimacy, create accurate recommendations, and encourage ongoing engagement [3, p.1].

What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Decision-Making

Planning/Preparation

Running a citizens’ jury requires many months of preparation before the first session takes place. In the Birmingham case, this involved commissioning a specialist facilitation organisation [2] and a recruitment organisation (the Sortition Foundation) to manage the process. It is important to define the central question that the jury will address which, in this case, is “What does Birmingham need and want from its museums, now and in the future; and what should Birmingham Museums Trust do to make these things happen?” [2, p.1].

Recruitment was one of the most resource intensive parts of the process. Participants were offered £330 in vouchers plus expenses paid for in order to make the participation accessible to those who were not able to give up their time. An independent Oversight Panel was also recruited which was drawn from local government, the voluntary sector, academics, cultural institutions and community organisations. They met four times to ensure the process was fair, suggested topics for discussion and identified expert commentators [2, p.9]. All participants received an introductory, one-to-one phone call before the session in order to explain the process and identify any support requirements. Resources required included funding for facilitation, recruitment, compensation, venue, technology and independent evaluation, In Birmingham this was made possible through National Lottery Heritage Fund grant [2, p.4].

Process Structure

The Birmingham jury had six sessions (September and November 2024) and three full day in person sessions and three online evening sessions on Zoom [2, p.10]. This hybrid approach was designed so that early sessions focused on grounding participants in their own experiences and introducing them to the overall topic. Middle sessions brought in the expert knowledge and the later sessions were refining recommendations. Each of the sessions began with a fixed group of participants who met at the start of every session to build relationships and reflect on how the process was going. These groups were designed to be as diverse as the jury as a whole [2, p.10], which gives participants consistency and reduces the isolation that can happen in large groups.

Interaction and Facilitation

The interaction in a citizens’ jury is carefully organised throughout the process. In Birmingham, Shared Future used a variety of techniques across the sessions to ensure inclusive participation. This included creative exercises such as Lego building, drawing and freeze frames in Session 1 to help participants articulate what Birmingham meant to them, a “speed dating” exercise in which participants changed partners to share stories that they felt needed to be told about their home [2, p.13]. Opinions lie in which participants positioned themselves along the spectrum, between “agree” and “disagree” in response to statements about museums - before explaining their position to the group. Not only this, but a “cheerleaders and critics” exercise where small groups were assigned to argue for and against museum roles [2, p.21]. Participants interacted with expert commentators through structured question/answer sessions. After each presentation, participants went into small groups to discuss what they had heard and to form questions. Where participants were not comfortable asking questions, facilitators asked on their behalf. Questions that could not be answered were sent to commentators by email and shared ahead of the following session [2, p.13]. In Session 5, an open space format was used which allowed participants to choose which commentator they wanted to have a deeper conversation with [2, p.19]. All group discussions had facilitators who were responsible for keeping conversations on track and ensuring all voices were heard. In Session 1, the group guidelines were even co-produced by the participants themselves and were used throughout the process as a reference point for managing disagreement [2, p.11].

Decision-Making

In Sessions 5 and 6, three drafting rounds were used to create recommendations. Participants in the first round spent around 45 minutes creating preliminary proposals after self-selecting into four groups: community participation, funding and marketing, new audiences, and understanding existing audiences [2, p. 20]. In between sessions, facilitators typed these up and gave them back to the participants to review. Participants had the option to change their theme or make revisions to their current recommendations in the second and third rounds. The jury's general thoughts on the procedure were also captured in a collective statement written by a different statement writing group.

In order to give participants time to consider their viewpoints, final voting was held following the final session. A five-point rating system, ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree," was used to vote on each recommendation and role. The recommendations were ranked after the points were totalled. For publication in the final report, an 80% acceptance criteria was established [2, p. 22]. Along with their votes, participants were asked to submit written comments, which were fully published in the report's appendix. A wide variety of opinions, including concerns, could be seen in the published report, since this voting process maintained individual opinions instead of forcing unanimity.

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

The purpose of citizens’ juries is to produce a specific outcome: a set of recommendations, which are produced through deliberation, that informs and even shapes the decisions of the commissioning body. In the case of the Birmingham Museums Citizens’ Jury, the intended outcome was a body of guidance - eleven “roles of the museum” and twenty ranked recommendations in which the Birmingham Museums Trust could use to shape its direction. The main goal was to address the crisis of relevance and resource: museums struggling with declining public funding, unequal visitor demographics, and a widening gap between institutions and the communities they serve. Through a cross section of the residents in Birmingham in deliberation, the jury aimed to produce recommendations set in genuine public need instead of the preferences of stakeholders alone.

Influence

The recommendations address its policies and practices - from marketing and accessibility to governance. However, the ambitions of the process extended beyond this. By publishing the report and making the recommendations public, Birmingham Museums Trust confirms its aim to stay accountable, thus extending the jury’s influence to the Trust’s Board, funders such as National Lottery Heritage Fund, partner organisations and Birmingham City Council. The last is particularly significant due to the fact that Birmingham City Council “owns the collection of over one million objects and nine venues” [2, p.3] that are managed by Birmingham Museums Trust but its declaration of bankruptcy causes uncertainty around the funding of said institutions that they heavily depend on.

Outcomes

The outcome was that the jury produced eleven ranked roles for the museum and twenty recommendations covering funding and marketing, community engagement and collaboration, exploring diverse perspectives, and new audiences, accessibility and inclusivity [2, p.1]. These were written by the participants themselves across the three drafting rounds, and voted on using a weighted scale with individual comments published alongside voting tallies. The Birmingham report acknowledges the accountability pressure, noting that recommendations are published “precisely so that the Board and staff of Birmingham Museums Trust can be held to account for their implementation” [2, p.4].

Effects

Other than institutional influence, citizens’ juries can produce significant effects on the participants themselves, which is documented in the Birmingham case. Jury members who had entered the process disengaged from or are indifferent to museums had now described themselves as “active citizens” [2, p.24], with a juror stating “I feel like a citizen again” [2, p.4]. This points to the wider democratic effects that deliberative processes can lead to beyond their official policy purpose. The process also had visible effects on the commissioning organisation: the Co-CEOs state that the jury’s findings are “truly inspirational” [2, p.4], thus shifting the organisation’s ambition in ways that consultations wouldn’t have achieved. A potential negative consequence is the risk of raising community expectations that cannot be met. With twenty recommendations produced and published, there is pressure on Birmingham Museums Trust to display clear progress, and failure to implement recommendations effectively could undermine trust in future participatory processes. The report itself acknowledges this pressure, noting that recommendations are published “precisely so that the Board and staff of Birmingham Museum Trust can be held to account for their implementation” [2, p.4]. As Birmingham City Council’s financial position severely constrains what Birmingham Museums Trust can do, the gap between citizen aspiration and institutional capacity is a risk.

Analysis and Lessons Learned

This analysis evaluates the Birmingham Museums Citizens’ Jury against the six democratic goods in which Graham Smith identified in Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizens Participation (2009). As Hilmer summarises, Smith’s approach aims to compare democratic innovations “based on the manner and extent to which they realise desirable qualities or goods that we expect of democratic institutions” [23, p.109], combining “four explicitly democratic goods” [24, p.13], and “two institutional goods” [24, p.13]. The four democratic goods are inclusiveness, considered judgement, popular control and transparency and the two institutional goods are efficiency and transferability. This approach is applied, with each good addressed to its relevant components and with attention to the goods that come from the Birmingham case.

Inclusiveness

Inclusiveness is made up of two components: demographic representativeness and the avoidance of self-censorship. Both of which are relevant to assessing the Birmingham jury and present a mixed picture. On demographic representativeness, the jury performed reasonably well. Recruitment via the Sortition Foundation had used random stratified sampling, sending 5,000 letters to “randomly selected households” across the Birmingham metropolitan area [2, p.7]. This method is designed to overcome the self-selection bias that most public consultations suffer from and reaches people regardless of their past relationship to museums or civic participation. The final jury reflected Birmingham’s many demographics including gender, age, ethnicity, disability status and religion. 26 members attended all sessions and voted on the final recommendations [2, p.1]. The decision to “overrepresent from lower education levels” [2, p.7] shows an awareness that demographic targets by itself is insufficient - that inclusion requires counteracting structural patterns that keeps certain groups away from institutions like museums where “those with a degree or professional qualification are up to 4.6 times more likely to visit a museum than those with no formal qualification” [2, p.5].

However, demographic gaps are still significant. The target for participants with “no qualifications” was 23.9% of the Birmingham population, only 3.4% of the final jury were in this category, with the report acknowledging that “a low response rate from those with ‘no qualifications’ meant this was difficult to do” [2, p.7]. The people least represented in the jury are the same people least represented in museum visitor data - specifically those whose perspectives that the process needed to incorporate. With 41.3% of Birmingham’s population in the most deprived Index of Multiple Deprivation band [2, p.8], this makes the gap significant - in a city where museum visits are dominated by the well-off, failing to recruit participants with no qualifications is a clear gap.

Secondly, self-censorship refers to whether participants felt genuinely free to express their views that may be unpopular or contrasting to the consensus. The independent evaluator noted the process was “strong in bringing together diverse groups who wouldn’t normally interact” and that facilitation organisations are “generally good at managing inclusion and making people feel comfortable” [13]. One participant “mentioned feeling very comfortable despite initially feeling self-conscious about wearing religious clothing” [13], thus suggesting that self-censoring on grounds of cultural/religious identity was meaningfully addressed. However, the evaluator also noted that “there were some dropouts, which raises questions about whether the process fully supported all participants throughout” and "facilitators were sometimes not fully open when asked about these issues, which made evaluation more difficult” [13]. This is a significant issue as it constrains confident assessment of self-censoring across the group. There were many features which were designed to reduce self-censoring: group guidelines were co-produced by participants rather than imposed by facilitators, disagreement was explicitly labelled as legitimate “we must disagree respectfully with the idea - not the person” [2, p.11], and small group formats were used to ensure that more quieter participants had space to contribute before views were shared with the whole group. The voting method - which allowed individual dissent to be registered and published - also reduced pressure toward false consensus. The individual comments expressing reservations appear throughout Annexes A and B of the report suggests that participants felt able to register disagreement even on the recommendations they voted for.

It is also worth noting that the financial compensation and prestige of participation in the “first citizens’ just of its kind for a museum in the UK” [2, p.6] may itself have created pressure towards positive engagement with the process and its outputs. At the time of the jury, Birmingham City Council had “effectively declared bankruptcy”, creating “a perception in the media of the city struggling financially”, while participants “were aware of that contrast” between civic hardship and a process focused on museum strategy [13]. While no negative press emerged, this awareness may have fostered pressure on participants to demonstrate the value of cultural institutions - which potentially could have affected what they recommended.

Considered Judgement

Considered judgement is made up of two components: learning and empathy. As Hilmer notes, Smith “cautiously argues that evidence suggests that considered judgement is enhanced in mini-publics - a discovery especially of interest to deliberative democrats” [23, p.110]. Both of these components are apparent in the Birmingham case. In relation to the first component (learning), the jury’s design was significant. Participants heard from twelve expert commentators across six sessions, covering audience research, funding models, exhibition curation, community engagement and comparative international practice. The topics were not predetermined by Birmingham Museums Trust - participants themselves identified what they wanted to hear more about at the end of Session 1, and the Oversight Panel used these preferences to select commentators for subsequent sessions [2, p.13]. This is significant because rather than arriving at an institutional jury, participants developed their own questions and priorities before encountering export testimony, reducing the risk that learning would confirm existing institutional positions. The range of commentators was broad, including audience specialists (like Katy Raines and Indigo), academic researchers (like Professor Suzanne MacLeod of the University of Leicester) and practitioners from other cities like Liverpool City Council [2, p15-19]. Evidence of learning is clear as participants describe having their assumptions challenged and knowledge of the museum furthered.

In addition to this, the second component is empathy. This refers to participants who are coming to understand perspectives and experiences which are different from their own. The Birmingham jury’s design has encouraged this by repeated structured dialogue across difference: home groups that brought together participants from different backgrounds in small group relationships across all sessions, activities that invited participants to share personal stories, and the speed dating exercise in Session 1 where participants shared the stories that they felt needed to be told about the city [2, p.13]. These activities therefore established a culture in which personal experiences were legitimate. The Jury Statement captures empathy clearly: “as a group of different people with different lives we have different opinions but have found consensus in our shared aspirations” [2, p.25]. A participant reflected “I’ve learned to take on board people’s opinions and listen to people, and it’s made a huge difference to me” [2, p.25] which shows the empathetic development that Smith had identified as a democratic good [24]. However, Roberts had offered critical feedback on the limits of this development, noting they “would be more willing to include controversial or challenging topics, such as colonial histories, rather than avoiding them” [13]. This therefore suggests that while the space was for the most part empathetic, it had avoided the more difficult aspects of Birmingham’s history - particularly the conversations in which empathy would be most valuable.

Popular control

Popular control is the degree to which citizens are the ones to determine the outcomes of democratic processes. Graham Smith identifies three aspects of mini publics that “potentially undermine the realisation of popular control”, “the selection of the charge of witnesses; the mode of facilitation; the impact of outputs on political decision making” [24, p.89] [23, p.110]. The Birmingham jury exercised influence at several points and participants directly shaped the agenda. At the end of Session 1, they identified the topics they wanted to hear more about, and the Oversight Panel used these preferences to select commentators. The recommendations were written by participants across three rounds, with facilitators providing support but not directing the content. The weighted voting methodology allowed individual dissent to be registered instead of submerging it into majority positions, and the published report includes individual comments along with voting tallies thus preserving disagreement within the consensus. The recommendation to include the Citizens’ Jury “in a future advisory capacity” and to “explore the idea of places on the museums’ board being allocated specifically to community representatives” [2, p.25] reflects participants’ desire to sustain rather than conclude their influence - which is an expression of popular control extending beyond the process. However, it could be said that popular control has structural limits to it. The jury produced recommendations but didn’t make decisions. Ultimate authority rests with the Birmingham Museums Trust board and senior leadership. The foreword states recommendations are published “precisely so that the Board and staff of Birmingham Museums Trust can be held to account for their implementation” [2, p.4] which represents a form of popular control as it relies on reputational pressure rather than an obligation. The Oversight Panel also showed clear control over design decisions without being subject to democratic deliberation, meaning that the framing of what counted as legitimate knowledge and who qualified as an expert, was not fully open to challenge from the participants.

Transparency

Smith distinguishes between internal and external transparency: clarity towards participants about how the process works versus openness to public scrutiny of the process. As Hilmer states, transparency in mini publics is “improved as exemplified by the case of the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly” [23, p.110]. The Birmingham jury performed strongly on both. Internally, participants were told how contributions would add to recommendations, how voting would work, and that any recommendation needed at least 80% approval from the jury to be included in the final report. One-to-one phone calls, co-produced group guidelines and the iterative sharing of materials between sessions have all contributed to the process in which participants understood their role and could trust that their contributions were being accurately recorded. For example, typing up draft recommendations meant that participants could verify that their words had not been distorted in the translation from the discussion to document [2, p.22]. The publication of individual comments with voting tallies in Annexes A and B further displays internal transparency as participants could see that it had been accurately published.

In terms of external transparency, observer places were offered to stakeholders from local government, Arts Council England, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and heritage funders with a limit of three observers per session to prevent participants feeling overwhelmed [2, p.9]. Commentator presentations were recorded and made publicly available on the project website. The final report, which included not only recommendations but voting tallies, individual comments and the full list of questions, was published under a Creative Commons license [2]. In addition, a documentary film came under public access.

One area where transparency could be strengthened is the Oversight Panel. The report lists its members but fails to explain how they were recruited, what criteria they used for selection or how they reached decisions about the design process. As the Panel shaped key elements of what participants heard and how the process was structured, greater transparency about this would have been consistent with the ethos.

Efficiency

Smith states that “efficiency demands that we attend to the costs that participation can place on both citizens and public authorities” [24, p.13]. It is noted that “claims of efficiency are similarly acknowledged by citizens, yet less so by political officials tasked with justifying the substantive costs” [23, p.110] which is a tension that is relevant to the Birmingham case. In relation to the first component (efficiency for participants), the commitment was significant: 30 hours across six sessions between September and November 2024, combining three full days in person sessions and three online evenings. This is a significant ask for those who have jobs, families and other commitments. Compensatory payment of £330 in vouchers and travel expenses where needed clearly acknowledges the burden [2, p.7]. Qualitative evidence suggests that participants found it worthwhile: reflections at the final session were overwhelmingly positive, with one participant describing the process as “really constructive discussions about something that I would’ve walked past” [2, p.24]. The hybrid online/in person format introduced efficiency by reducing the need for travel but introduced new costs like providing laptops and internet access. Five participants required laptops and dongles to participate in online sessions [2, p.15].

With regards to efficiency for organisers and the public, the report does not publish a total budget, but the engagement of Shared Future as facilitators, the Sortition Foundation for recruitment, an external evaluator, and an independent Oversight Panel shows considerable expenditure which was only made possible through the National Lottery Heritage Fund [2, p.4]. Additionally, Birmingham Museums Trust received twenty legitimate recommendations produced by a demographically representative sample of Birmingham residents - in which no conventional consultation could reliably establish. The process also generated civic co-benefits (participants who became museum advocates) that represent the broader public value, which is difficult to measure but valuable, nonetheless. A key question is whether the investment led to change. A process whose recommendations are never acted on wastes not just money, but democratic effort. The evaluator’s assessment states, “some may have been implemented, but there is no clear public data on this” and “there hasn’t been a transparent follow-up or reporting on implementation, which is itself an important issue” [13]. Additionally, reaching the hardest to reach groups requires significant time and money, yet the jury still fell short on these demographics despite the investment in inclusive recruitment. This shows that spending more to reach more people does not always guarantee better results, and that financial incentives and outreach alone cannot fully overcome the obstacles that keep disengaged citizens away from civic processes.

Transferability

Smith identifies transferability as providing “an occasion to evaluate whether designs can operate in different political contexts, understood in relation to scale, political system or type of issue” [24, p.10]. The Birmingham jury both demonstrates and tests the limits of this claim. The Birmingham case is notable as the first citizens’ jury in a museum context [2, p.6]. This is comparable to processes in Germany: The Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn and Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden both had similar processes in 2023 [2, p.6], thus suggesting the model transfers nationally within the cultural and heritage sector. The New Art Exchange in Nottingham has gone further than this, incorporating “a permanent citizens’ assembly into its leadership structure” [2, p.6] - embedding participatory governance rather than merely using it as a one-off exercise. Birmingham’s published methodology offers a template which is replicable for similar institutions. However, many features would need adapting. For example, the sortition method depends on access to the Royal Mail address database, the financial compensation requires dedicated external funding, and the hybrid format requires technology and equipment that many small or less well funded institutions may struggle to afford.

Furthermore, the jury’s own Recommendation 13 - that it should be retained “in a future advisory capacity [2, p.35] - reflects participants’ desire for sustained influence rather than a one-off. The foreword frames the process as “the first step in modelling the kind of democratic society we would like to live in” [2, p.4], implying institutional commitment. Whether this ambition is sustained (given Birmingham’s fiscal constraints) will become evidence for or against the model’s transferability.

References

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