I didn't go to last week's e-democracy and empowerment symposium in London, but there are now some reports from those who did, plus webcasts.
Richard Wilson and Alice Casey of Involve gave us some context. They blogged at the Guardian, noting the government is keen for local government to harness technology to revolutionise its services, but concluded a culture change is needed first:
For e-democracy to work more than anything else, yes even more than money, we need an injection of staff time. Staff time to experience working in new ways. Staff time to listen, engage and understand all citizens, and time for staff themselves to become properly supported and empowered. Then, and only then, can they start to empower others.
Over on the UK and Ireland e-democracy exchange, Stephen Coleman, Professor of Political Communication and Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Citizenship, was not impressed by the keynote speech from Secretary of State Hazel Blears:
Even by the standard of other Ministerial statements in which politicians clearly have little to say, this seems to have been an extraordinarily vacuous speech. Hazel Blears refers to how online 'dialogue helps us make a better policy that really reflects what people need and want', but did not give a single example of how such public input has led to policy that is in any way different, better-informed or more representative. Referring to the Number Ten e-petitions, Hazel Blears cites 'Burma, Capital Gains Tax, The police pay deal' as examples of important public input. The questions she needs to answer, if her commitment to e-democracy is to be taken at all seriously, are i) how have these e-petitions contributed to government policy-making; and ii) how does she know what contribution they made in the absence of any evaluation of the Number Ten e-petitions project?
Although Hazel Blears' speech was short on detail, it was revealing for a couple of issues not mentioned. Firstly, amongst the successful e-democracy projects cited (Netmums, MySociety), there was no mention of any of the projects launched by the government as part of its national local e-democracy project. It would have been interesting to hear how many of these are still going and are seen as contributing to government policy-making at any level. Secondly, there was no reference to the government's own e-democracy centre (ICELE), which is odd considering that this is probably the main area of government spending on e-democracy. I suspect that these non-references were the most important part of the speech.
Shane McCracken has blogged three items. Part one: blogging and facebook; Part two : Avaaz and NGOs; Part three : Norfolkblurb and youth participation. It sounds as if that final session was one of the few genuinely participative ones.
Steve Dale was presenting on the first day...
...on the topic of building communities in the local government sector, using metaphors to describe how village communities developed around meeting places such as the village hall in by-gone years, and how communities of practice can flourish once a domain of interest is established (I used the Gosport Allotment Holders association as a contemporary example, where the mix of gardening experts and novices find mutual benefit in belonging to a collective). The key point being that just because we now have much better on-line collaboration tools and technologies, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that it's the people that make communities (of interest, or practice or whatever). A message that was probably lost on a speakers platform that was almost exclusively devoted to Web 2.0 technologies as the panacea for enabling more effective citizen engagement with the public sector. Reinforced of course with a veritable blizzard of 'e' prefixes - e-Collaboration, e-Empowerment, e-Participation, which never fail to give the uninitiated the impression that we're all in the technological fast lane (though some of us suffer from deja vu when we recall a similar e-word blitz associated with the previous dot-com era of the mid-90's. It meant nothing then, it means nothing now!).
Steve Dale also seemed underwhelmed by Government offerings:
I'd like to think that the government is investing in the right 'e-programmes', but I can't help feeling that their inherent lack of agility and the propensity for the big consultancies to sell them hugely expensive and over-complex Web 2.0 solutions will mean yet more missed opportunities. In the mean time, us citizens get on with life as best we can!
It'll be interesting to see what the Governance of Britain team over at the Ministry of Justice has planned by way of events and online discussions leading up to a Citizens Summit about a proposed British Statement of Values later this year, which I reported here. Will they go for a big site/big consultancy approach to reach a wide range of people, or try and achieve that with more emphasis on existing online forums and networks, coupled with a hub site to aggregate and keep things moving? Will they have the time and staff to deal with responses,and analyse them?
The latest on Britishness from the Government comes from Margaret Hodge, speaking at an IPPR event.
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