The committee asked for views on three areas: the purpose of ePetitions; managing the website; and the handling of the petitions by the House.

While nothing much was said about ePetitions in the report, I think I can now publish the submission I sent, which sets out some ideas for how the current system could be improved.

Big thanks are also due to the people who contributed to some of the ideas below. 

Executive summary

1. The ePetitions website should use the postcode data supplied by signatories to show how much support a petition has across the country.

2. The same data should also be used to show which petitions are most popular in each constituency so MPs and the public can see what other people in their area are concerned about.

3. Acting on the basis of what is most of concern in their constituency, individual MPs can opt to use the range of parliamentary and political tools at their disposal to seek information or resolution for petitioners.

4. Any MP acting in this way should be allowed to post their updates onto the petition's web page for all to see, and to provide email updates to those signatories who live in their constituency.

5. This would provide a more transparent system, move the focus from the number of signatories to the validity of the issue in question, and provide responses to more petitions while putting Parliament and MPs more firmly at the centre of the process.

6. There could be an enhanced role for select committees in taking on the vetting and approving role that departments currently undertake. For petitions which they believe raise genuine concerns, select committees could seek written responses from the departments they shadow.

7. Parliament should consider carefully whether it has the right project management approach, as well as the resources, to continually develop the ePetitions website.

8. But maintenance and development of the website should not be confused with its branding and presentation to the public, nor with ownership of the petitions process as a whole.

I. Introduction

9. I have written this submission with the aim of encouraging the committee to consider how technology can help address the problems it has identified with the existing ePetition system. The issue is not just how parliamentary processes should change to deal with these petitions, but also how the website can change to better fit with how Parliament works.

10. The impact of technology on the political system has been a long-standing professional and personal interest, and I write about it at www.eDemocracyBlog.com.

11. The ideas and opinions set out here are provided in a personal capacity.

II. Public engagement: What is the purpose of ePetitions?

12. The ePetitions system has two aims. The first is to deal at a micro level with the issues that individual petitioners might wish to raise, and the second is the macro objective of deepening public engagement with the democratic process.

13. It is a quirk of how ePetition systems work that it is possible to go some way towards meeting the second objective while doing much less to address the first.

14. The reason for this is that the vast majority of signatures are added to a very small number of petitions, so by developing an effective process for dealing with these few petitions it is possible to show to large numbers of citizens that their concerns are being heard in Parliament. While the use of the 100,000 threshold may be arbitrary, it does have the merit of ensuring that there is some process for handling these high-profile petitions which account for most public interest and interaction.

15. However, by placing such importance on the number of signatures, the existing process obviously reduces the focus on the merits of the argument when it comes to delivering an official response (albeit that a petition must have a some kind of case in favour if it is to get 100,000 people to sign it) and disadvantages those without easy access to the media or other campaign tools.

16. Instead of the single option of 100,000 signatures resulting in a Commons debate, a more flexible system is required which allows greater scope for decisions to be taken on the merits of the petitions, and a range of responses to be given accordingly.

III. Process and procedure: Handling of ePetitions by the House of Commons

17. Parliament is currently experiencing a mild version of the internet-enabled disruption that sectors of the economy such as publishing and music have already experienced. The ePetitions website is asking questions about the ways in which the UK political system works, and how responsive to the public it is prepared to be.

18. But this disruption and the solution to it are usually two sides of the same coin in that the problems experienced by traditional ways of doing things are usually caused by the emergence of new mechanisms which offer better alternatives.

19. This leads me to ask whether it is possible to imagine a way of using technology to address the committee's main concerns – lack of time for Commons debates, engaging with petitions below the 100,000 threshold, avoiding the expense of a new petitions committee, improving communications with petitioners, enhancing the involvement of individual MPs – while also bringing greater transparency and usability to the ePetitions website and limiting the scope for narrow interests to hijack the process.

20. I would suggest that the ePetitions system, through its use of postcode data to verify petitioners and signatories, already has the information needed to effectively address these issues.

21. The technology exists (see for example http://www.theyworkforyou.com/api/docs/getConstituency) to convert postcodes into parliamentary constituencies without great difficulty.

22. This would make it possible to generate a 'heatmap' of a petition's signatories by constituency, which could show what proportion of the petition's signatures come from each constituency.

23. As well has having this petition-based view of the data, it could also be displayed on the website in a constituency-based view which would allow the user to see which petitions are most popular within an individual constituency.

24. This change should be coupled with an opening up of the feedback mechanism to individual MPs so that they can email a message to the signatories of any petition who gave a postcode located in their constituency. These two changes would have a number of beneficial effects.

25. First, it could be used to address the issue of a lack of time for Commons debates. Parliament could reasonably require that for a Commons debate the signatories should cover a broad geographical area. This would help identify issues of genuine national concern, and would also mean that campaigners who wish to secure a Commons debate are encouraged to reach out around the country. Debates which failed this hurdle could be debated in Westminster Hall as recently proposed by the Procedure Committee.

26. Second, any individual MP (along with the general public) would now have access to data on which issues are generating the most interest in their constituency. They would then be free to make individual judgements on whether or how to they might want to take any of the issues forward, using the range of options open to them such as adjournment debates or written or oral questions. This would help to take the focus off the time allocated to the Backbench Business Committee and allow for a range of graduated and proportionate responses instead of the current all-or-nothing Commons debate.

27. Third, as each MP could decide for themselves on how many signatures a petition might need from their constituency before they act on it, it could be managed within existing office resources.

28. Fourth, it would help to move the focus from the arbitrary 100,000 threshold and towards the actual importance of the issue at stake. This also deepens engagement by encouraging MPs to engage with their constituents regardless of the numbers. Some local or regional issues might merit responses from some MPs but not from others. This approach would allow sufficient flexibility to deal with such cases.

29. Fifth, those MPs who use the system would have a mechanism for communication with (potentially) hundreds or thousands of their constituents, and provide feedback to signatories which shows the value of the democratic process and the ways in which Parliament can act on their behalf even if this is short of delivering a change in government policy. These communications could also be used, for example, to explain the role of MPs and Parliament in the democratic process and set out how this differs from the position of government.

30. Sixth, MPs might also use their knowledge of the constituency to email signatories about means of engagement which do not require action by Parliament or government, such as suggesting that issues are referred to local councils or other public bodies, local voluntary organisations and campaign groups, or web forums where the issue is also being discussed.

31. Seventh, by publishing on the website alongside each petition any responses and actions from individual MPs, constituents will be able to see who is and is not responding, increasing transparency and giving voters the ability to make up their own minds about how good a job their MP is doing. This kind of openness would also act as an incentive for MPs to make at least some use of the system.

32. So making better use of the geographical information already being collected and allowing MPs to email constituents and/or publish their responses online would be an advance for Parliament in that it puts MPs at the heart of serving their constituencies without adding to the pressures on the limited time available on the floor of the House or in Westminster Hall. It also creates a new mechanism for MPs to communicate with their constituents and monitor their concerns. And it allows constituency-level judgements about the merits of an issue and the amount of support it has while opening up the range of available responses.

33. The committee has also sought views on the merits of a Petitions Committee. In general, the reason for having a Petitions Committee would be to provide some level of engagement with petitions which fall short of the 100,000 threshold.

34. The proposals outlined above are an alternative means of achieving the same end. It could be managed within existing resources according to the priorities which individual MPs choose for themselves.

35. Another option would be that select committees take over from the departments they shadow the responsibility for approving new petitions, ensuring they comply with terms and conditions, rejecting duplicates, etc.

36. For those with over, say, 5,000 signatures (a manageable 64 open petitions at the time of writing) the committee might seek a written response from the government if it believes such action is merited and publish this on the petitions website and/or email this update to signatories.

37. Again, this would provide further opportunities for petitions to generate feedback to those who have signed them, and would not preclude the option for individual MPs to also seek further information or redress on behalf of their constituents.

38. It may be worth addressing the question of whether this risks duplication of effort with multiple MPs plus a select committee potentially all chasing action on the same petition. Should this be the case, it is most likely to be because the issue has been repeatedly judged by those involved to merit further action. In this sense, it would be no different from any other significant political issue on which numerous MPs might also be raising concerns.

39. There would be cost implications of select committees taking on the petitions moderation work. The government should be able to supply some information on how labour-intensive this is for departments at the moment.

IV. Parliament and the Executive: Management of the ePetitions website

40. This is not my area of expertise, but I think it is worth the committee noting that there are three separate issues here.

41. The first is what the internet address of the website is and how it should be presented to the public. As the main promise of the site is clearly (at present) to have an issue 'debated in the Commons', and it is suggested here that MPs should take on a larger role providing responses to petitioners, it clearly makes sense to simplify the process under which the Leader of the Commons currently notifies the Backbench Business Committee (this simply adds a layer of complexity that many petitioners might not understand) and move the website to a parliamentary address and have parliamentary officials monitor the petitions.

42. Moving the website from its current epetitions.direct.gov.uk address to epetitions.parliament.uk and changing the branding on it should not be a difficult task.

43. The second issue is who maintains the site and provides future updates to its technology as they are required. I would note that the Government Digital Service (GDS) has, in general, taken an agile and iterative approach which offers the prospect of regular improvement to the service.

44. If maintaining and upgrading the service becomes the responsibility of Parliament then it must first be confident that it can continue to offer similar improvements to the service at a reasonable cost in the future. Alternatively, Parliament could consider an arrangement where the GDS continues to maintain the service even though the web address at which it is accessible is a parliamentary one.

45. The third issue is who should own and control the ePetitions process. On the basis of the proposals outlined here, it seems clear that this should be Parliament. But again, those ultimately placed in charge of the website must be committed to regular review and improvement on timescales that reflect the pace of internet developments, not the usual pace of parliamentary reform.

© eDemocracyblog.com 2012. | Permalink | One comment |

Image from 123rf.com

I discussed one headline from the Electoral Commission's report on improving the electoral register through data-matching in yesterday's post, and today plan to delve into the issues a bit deeper.

The summary, in essence, was that the pilots showed some potential but in the final analysis were "inconclusive".

When it came to finding new people to add to the register, the report concluded:

"On the whole, these pilots did not prove very effective at getting people on to the register. Despite the efforts invested by authorities in the pilots, very few additions (only 7,917) were subsequently made to the registers."

And when it came to finding people who were on the register but should not be, "most of the pilot schemes did not test this objective".

"This was in part due to a primary focus on identifying missing names and in part due to the volume and currency of the data received."

I can't help but think this was not a well-designed set of pilot schemes, but at least those involved now know what they don't know.

There seems to have been a lack of understanding between the data providers and the data users, which was exemplified by this line from the report:

"Many of the potential new electors suggested by the match with the DWP Centric database proved to be based on out of date or incorrect information. The problems posed by this could have been reduced by the inclusion of the date when the DWP record changed – something which DWP were willing to provide but were not asked to do so."

Another important point from the report was just how bad the public sector is at dealing with addresses, given how important they must be to delivering services and assessing needs.

The report said:

"The absence of a unique identifier attached to each address on the public national databases was a key issue for the pilots."

However it did add that this might be improved by the "planned inclusion of Unique Property Reference Numbers (a unique identifier for each address held) on the DWP database".

Finally, the Electoral Commission concluded that those running future pilots should "stay abreast of developments" in the government's identity assurance programme.

That is interesting, because if the source data was as difficult to use as it appeared to be, it does raise questions about how the ID assurance scheme itself will validate people against records.

For example, the tender notice for the scheme says:

"Verification will be performed in an appropriate channel (web, telephone or face to face). The provider will verify that sufficient evidence exists to verify that a person presenting on a given channel is the owner of the claimed identity"

Yet the Commission report indicates how difficult it is to match the DWP data to other official sources, let alone use it for authentication.

"There is substantial variation across local authorities regarding the level of match between the electoral registers and the DWP Centric database ranging from 45.7 per cent to 85.3 per cent.

"In total, 1,925,336 register entries were sent for matching and 1,370,006 were found on the DWP Centric database. That equates to a match level of 71.2 per cent.

"The percentage of register entries sent for matching but not found on DWP Centric varied across local authorities from 12.4 per cent to 47.6 per cent."

That said, though, part of the data-matching problem in this context was put down to the fact that electoral registers are address-based databases while DWP holds databases of people where the address is secondary.

These pilots also failed to allow enough time for proper address cleansing on both sets of data.

However, allowing for those issues the report said that in Greenwich some 11 per cent of those contacted said that a person expected to live at the property no longer did so (if they ever did), while in Camden it was nearly 14 per cent and in Wigan it was eight per cent.

So what might this mean for identity assurance and the DWP? The report says:

"These issues with the accuracy of matches or mis-matches relate primarily to the matching process used rather than the data held by DWP. The matching process was designed by Cabinet Office to allow for a wide range of possible matches and it was therefore inevitable that some apparent matches would prove to be false.

"However, it is also the case that the responses to the pilot follow-up activities are likely to understate the inaccuracies in the data as relatively few people who were written to responded either to register or to say the name 58 was incorrect. Indeed the fairly low numbers registering from the control groups compared with the overall canvass response (excluding the attainer-focused pilots) suggests that the level of inaccuracies in the data is high.

"The detailed results provided by Wigan on their control group are revealing as these names were subject to the full canvass. Of 1,138 names tracked through the canvass, 58 per cent of responses resulted in registrations that were not for the person named by the DWP at that address.

"The Colchester pilot used canvassers to follow up names suggested by matching with DWP and found similar results. The canvassers achieved 936 responses to their enquiries. Of these, 54 per cent indicated that the person had moved out, was unknown at the address or was deceased.

"DWP have indicated to us that they are aware of issues with the currency of some of the data they hold. Specifically, that the likelihood of someone having an up to date address on the DWP Centric database is related to how often they interact with DWP or another agency that feeds data into the DWP data warehouse.

"For example, DWP think it is more likely that people claiming some form of benefit will have an up-to-date address, as this is required in order to receive the benefit. On the other hand, people do not need to update their addresses in order to continue to receive their pension and many may fail to do so. DWP have also indicated that at the outset they highlighted the issue of variable data currency to the Cabinet Office as a possible issue for these pilots."

It will be interesting to see how the ID assurance programme attempts to square this circle.

© eDemocracyblog.com 2012. | Permalink | No comment |

My scepticism was based on the fact that the evidence available up to that point had suggested that attempts at any such matching had proven pretty difficult.

Now the Electoral Commission has published its report on the data-matching pilot schemes and in a couple of deeply buried paragraphs has accused the Cabinet Office of lacking evidence to back up its claim.

The report says:

"While it is true that the results show an average match rate between the electoral registers and the DWP Centric database of around 65%, it is important to note that these pilots used a new, previously untested, matching process.

"In addition, very few of the pilots set out to confirm the accuracy of entries which matched, but to see whether those records which did not match were people missing from the electoral register who could be encouraged to reply...

"Given the government's intention to consider this route as a way of verifying register entries (and the timetable for the implementation of individual electoral registration (IER)), we recommend that further piloting take place urgently to assess the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach.

"At this stage, in our view, the evidence from these pilots is not sufficient to support such a significant change to the registration system."

It seems that the Cabinet Office and the deputy prime minister have jumped on some statistically unreliable numbers in order to relieve the political pressure they were under from claims that their plans would see large numbers of people drop off the electoral register during the switch from household to individual registration.

More should be made of this.

I'll assess the pilot evaluations in greater detail in another post tomorrow.

© eDemocracyblog.com 2012. | Permalink | No comment |

The post sets out how the gov.uk team is using as a working definition of policy "statements of the government's position, intent or action".

This includes mandatory information on the issue and actions being taken in response to it, plus optional information on the policy background, who is engaged with it, who is being affected by it, the legal framework, partner organisations and related news and publications.

It highlights just how much unpacking the simple word 'policy' seems to require.

Occasionally the government talks in a language that implies there are policies and meta-policies.

The original motivation behind the development of departmental business plans was not so much for Whitehall to achieve something itself, but for it to put in place the frameworks, systems and incentives for others to achieve it.

In which case the 'policies' may become more diffuse, being developed and implemented by a variety of local providers and getting blurred with the day-to-day decisions and delivery, operations and implementation.

Anyway, this post aims to suggest a couple of ways in which the presentation of policy information online could be used to significantly enhance political accountability, in line with my personal definition of eDemocracy.

There are two classes of information, open data and freedom of information releases, which might implicitly be covered by the phrases "statements about actions" or "related publications" but which would benefit from being explicitly mentioned given their potential importance.

They might not be relevant in every scenario, but as well as the statements and speeches about what the government says it is doing, policy pages should also include the datasets which might provide some kind of evidence about what it is actually achieving.

Given that some of the most significant policies (those in the departmental business plans at least) have targets or intended outcomes associated with them, and deadlines, it should be possible to pull out the data from the information strategies which is being used as an indicator for delivery success.

Progress on each of the business plan objectives is already being tracked in monthly updates, but more could be made of this information than is currently the case.

Some data visualisations of this information might also be a massive step forward for visibility and accountability, certainly on the headline commitments if not on every last detailed policy.

Further down the road, gov.uk could also go further on some of the other open data that's out there and relate spending figures to policies so everyone can see how much a policy costs.

Another significant step would be to publicly assign the policy to people or bodies in the departmental organograms which are available now, so it is also clear who is responsible for it.

Adding in this kind of information (gov.uk might be planning some of this already for all I know) – and making it available for re-use and publication anywhere else – could significantly transform the quality of information available to citizens about what their government is both trying to do and actually delivering.

© eDemocracyblog.com 2012. | Permalink | No comment |

Their video of the event is below, and I've also pulled out a few of the tweets from the event that raised some of the most interesting issues.

For me the most remarkable thing about it was how mainstream the idea has become since the last election (hard to get much more establishment than the IfG).

For all the flaws, which are often more in the implementation than the concept, the idea of crowd-sourcing is now firmly established as a tool in the digital engagement armoury.

Some tweets

Govt could have more transparent deliberation of pros and cons of policy, not just taking 'input' and locking selves away. #ifgcrowds

January 23, 2012 8.11pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@cath_haddon

Catherine Haddon

This is a really important point about the 'black box' of the policy making process. It also applies more widely to issues such as freedom of information and open data. I've previously discussed the benefits of more openness in policy-making in a post on the slightly unusual subject of the Iraq war and eDemocracy.

Still not sure about the added value of crowdsourcing beyond it being a innovative form of surveying #ifgcrowds

January 23, 2012 8.09pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Kateblatchford

Kate Blatchford

An interesting point which is also related to this tweet:

.@sburall poses interesting Q: should gvt be playing guessing game with public or consulting experts in particular fields? #ifgcrowds

January 23, 2012 7.53pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@amyjsmith

Amy Smith

Those two tweets raise a couple of issues.

The first is, do you really trust your crowd-sourcing exercise? This relates to a range of issues involving participation, self-selection, representativeness, etc.

The second question that follows on from that is even if you trust the validity of the inputs, does that make the outputs right?

The answers to those questions go into a deeper set of issues around deliberative mechanisms and user-led service design.

Are civil servants supposed to 'represent' the public, as @alex_butler says at #ifgcrowds ? Or is that the job of politicians?

January 23, 2012 7.45pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@owenbarder

Owen Barder

Last time I considered this point, I came to the conclusion that social media might well invert traditional roles and require civil servants to do more to represent the public than at present.

And for some more on the event, Simon Burall of Involve (one of the participants) has posted his thoughts on the issue.

The video

And here is the video, which is worth watching.

© eDemocracyblog.com 2012. | Permalink | No comment |

The government is open to transferring its ePetitions system to parliamentary control, Sir George Young has said.

Giving evidence to the Commons procedure committee, the minister faced sustained criticism for introducing the existing system without consulting MPs.

It was also revealed that the procedures committee may produce two reports on ePetitions, an "urgent" one looking at the most pressing issues and a medium term one which will encompass broader procedural reforms.

At least one committee member seemed to favour shifting all ePetition-generated debates into a vacant slot in Westminster Hall on Monday afternoons, with the backbench business committee then moving the most important ones into the Commons chamber.

So it is possible that might be a proposal included in the urgent report.

However, Natascha Engel, chairman of the backbench business committee, suggested there was a risk that would mean "angry ePetitioners sending emails on why was it in Westminster Hall and not in the chamber".

Easy way to influence?

Another contentious point between committee members and Engel on the one hand and Sir George on the other was the wording of the ePetitions website, which says on its homepage:

"e-petitions is an easy way for you to influence government policy in the UK."

Engel revealed she had asked "repeatedly" for that line of text to be taken down, saying it gives a "deeply misleading" impression of what an ePetition can achieve.

Dealing with the management of expectations is "very urgent", she said.

So it seems highly likely that the interim report could call for the wording of the website to be changed too.

Engel, who's committee allocates time to debate ePetitions and other subjects put forward by backbench MPs, welcomed the initiative but said the problems were a result of not having consulted widely enough "or at all" before the system was introduced.

"A lot of the problems that have arisen were perfectly foreseeable."

Thresholds and engagement

She said her committee was "very short on time" and has not been given additional time for allocating ePetition debates.

But she also questioned the use of the 100,000 threshold, saying it led to issues being judged on numbers rather than on their merit.

The threshold could be removed altogether, Engel suggested, with ePetitions possibly being dealt with by a dedicated committee as in Scotland.

Another option, she said, would be for the parliamentary outreach and education teams to work with campaigners before they start an ePetition.

This could lead to a better understanding of how Parliament works, and how best to achieve their aims. Petitions could, for example, be better directed to select committees.

The current system provides no education about how Parliament works when an ePetition is being signed, which she described as a "missed opportunity".

But Sir George said he was opposed to changes which put up barriers between the public and the ability to create or sign ePetitions.

Having an MP filter ePetitions at the beginning would remove direct access to the website, which is one of its strengths.

However Engel argued that dialogue at the start of the process was not a barrier but an important part of meaningful engagement.

Sir George also noted that only six ePetitions had reached the 100,000 threshold in six months so the situation is "not as alarming as may have been feared".

The minister also told the committee that the decision to set the threshold at 100,000 was "an inspired and informed guess" which turned out to be about right.

"We have no plans to change it."

Public control of Parliament

Engel also expressed concern that a fundamental change to the workings of the Commons had been introduced without debate.

In a discussion on the tensions between direct democracy and representative democracy, she said the public could now have direct control over a motion debated in the Commons.

"That is a very dramatic change to our way of doing things without it ever having gone through Parliament. It has never been debated and it was never voted on... I think that is potentially quite a dangerous avenue to go down."

She criticised the government for introducing a system which "passes the problem" to Parliament and added that the committee was prioritising subjects raised in ePetitions because of concern that a failure to do so could damage the reputation of MPs.

Describing the current system as a "half way house", Engel added that the government should either find time itself to debate ePetitions or hand it all over to Parliament,

Sir George said the current mechanism means that the decisions on what to debate are taken independently of government, which reduces accusations that ministers are ducking difficult issues.

Communications

There was also an interesting set of exchanges on communication with the creators and signatories of ePetitions.

Engel said she understood that government departments correspond with ePetitioners, but told the committee she doesn't believe that is being done.

All the committee gets is a letter from Sir George saying the threshold has been reached, and has no contact with ePetitioners until they are unhappy and begin emailing MPs directly, she added.

Sir George said that any ePetition that reaches the 100,000 level gets an initial government response. Though that claim prompted a sceptical Engel to ask: "Are you sure about that?"

Transfer to Parliament

The Commons leader concluded by saying that many of the problems with the system could be addressed if Parliament took ownership of the ePetitions system.

But he added that he would want the government's public commitments to be safeguarded.

"I would be very happy to engage in discussions, negotiations along those lines," he said.

Committee chairman Greg Knight responded: "It is very helpful to know that."

So a transfer of ePetitions to Parliament could be on the agenda when the committee's medium term report on "how and who you ePetition" is published.

© eDemocracyblog.com 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments |

I've already looked at the original strategy, but the latest document adds a few more interesting details.

Here is what it says:

The Challenge

Social media and other online tools are used increasingly by citizens around the world to effect change. It is important that government harnesses these technologies to allow citizens to have increased dialogue and involvement with the development of policies and have greater visibility of the decision-making process.

Objectives

As a first step, to facilitate a two-way dialogue with citizens, departments will ensure that a digital channel is included in all government consultations by December 2011. However in the longer term, a more comprehensive approach to developing user-centric online policy engagement and consultation is required. This will be developed as part of the single government web domain programme.

Key Metrics

Number of government consultations

Number of government consultations utilising a digital channel

The implementation plan says the Government Digital Service (GDS) will have an "online consultation product" (singular, not plural, in the document) developed by February 2012 and have it in place "as part of single domain for government" by October 2012.

The top three risks to the plans are also worth noting.

Top of the list is that the Better Regulation Executive (BRE) "may refuse to alter/amend the Code of Practice for government consultations". It would be another great paradox of government if the BRE also managed to act as the Worse Engagement Executive.

To be positive though, most BRE documents that I've seen tend to be sensible. For example their guidance on consultations states:

"The important thing is to use the means that will reach the people potentially affected by and interested in the policy under consideration."

Another risk the plan identifies is a "lack of business capability and capacity to support online engagement". This will be mitigated by the Cabinet Office and BRE presenting a paper to the Public Expenditure Committee (Efficiency and Reform) (PEX(ER)) Cabinet sub-committee "for agreement on resourcing for online consultations, including technology, moderation and response".

As noted previously, when the government planned its DirectGov ePetitions service, the specification specifically noted that:

"Discussion forums / commenting on e-petitions will not be allowed on our own e-petitions site due to the need for moderation and the cost that would involve."

So if proper resources are put in place for moderation then it is possible that public debate on government websites about government proposals might begin to take place (this concept was originally included back in the Conservative Technology Manifesto). And ensuring that proper responses are provided to those who take part would also help to fix another failing in the way online consultation is normally done at present.

The third risk noted in the report was that "engagement standards may not meet public expectations", which will be mitigated by ensuring that "standards align with current best practice and GDS strategy and approach to citizen engagement".

I take it as a good sign that the strategy and the GDS, in line with their general principles, are staying focused on citizen expectations.

But I think the change in language here, from "consultations" to "engagement" is deliberate and indicates an awareness that public expectations may include a wish for greater involvement than just answering the questions which the government is asking at a particular point in time.

Still, the plan is described as a "first step" to a "two-way dialogue with citizens" and it probably makes sense to begin with the issue of consultation as a matter of practicalities.

© eDemocracyblog.com 2011. | Permalink | No comment |

First, on September 8 were a set of exchanges about the website following the minor row over two petitions which reached the 100,000 threshold but were not scheduled for debate because there were no MPs lined up to speak in their favour when the backbench business committee decided how to allocate the time available to it.

Of note from the discussions is the statement that as of last week the site hosted more than 6,500 petitions with more than 1.5 million signatures.

It is also interesting to read deputy Commons leader David Heath switching arguments when trying to describe how the petitions system is linked to parliamentary processes.

He begins with:

"For the first time, the e-petitions website is not just graffiti, but offers the public an effective route for engaging with Parliament."

Which then becomes:

"[W]e have provided a way for the public to engage with Parliament. What the petitioners want, presumably, is for the topic they have raised either to be dealt with effectively by the Government or to be debated in due course by the House when the opportunity arises."

And is followed a few moments later by:

"The Government have never said that when a petition reaches the threshold it will have an automatic right of debate. It will be considered with a view to seeing whether the matter raised has already been debated or is already going to be debated in a different context or whether the request has already been met by the Government."

None of these statements are entirely inconsistent, but they do seem to point to the dangers of ministers overhyping expectations.

The promise of effective engagement with Parliament is coupled with no automatic right to debate. It is easy to see why debates can't be guaranteed, but this is not the message people actually using the site will get as the emphasis from those promoting petitions to the public will always be on the need to get to the 100,000 level "to make MPs debate this subject".

Anyway, after specifically not guaranteeing that a petition will automatically be debated, Heath concludes that this is "a huge improvement on the old Number 10 petition site on which the petitions went precisely nowhere".

I would dispute that characterisation of the previous site, under which there were petitions that did have a political impact and achieved their desired aims.

In another set of exchanges on the same day, Commons leader Sir George Young was on the receiving end of criticism about the system from Natascha Engel, the Labour MP who chairs the backbench business committee. She said:

"The Government launched the e-petitions website on the last day before the summer recess, with little consultation, debate or agreement by the House. All of us warmly welcome the e-petitions initiative, and there is clearly a public demand for it, but, although the Government have raised public expectations, they have passed responsibility for what to do with that expectation to the Backbench Business Committee.

"We are delighted to be involved with the initiative, and we very much want to ensure that it is a success, but we want to make it work properly and meaningfully. The problem... is that we cannot schedule for debate subjects raised by e-petitions unless the Government give us time to do so. Will the Leader of the House therefore meet not just me but the Chair of the Procedure Committee, Mr Knight, to discuss allocating extra time specifically to debate e-petitions in the short term, and to look at options such as setting up a dedicated e-petitions committee in the long term?"

The response from the minister was as non-committal as it is possible to be:

"We were in fact delivering a coalition agreement in going ahead with the website, which is an improvement on the Number 10 website, in that it links into the democratic process instead of ending simply at Number 10."

Sir George also promised that petitions submitted online would not be considered to the exclusion of petitions submitted on paper.

And Conservative MP Peter Bone suggested that there was no mechanism for ensuring that at least one MP was prepared to take forward an ePetitions which reached the 100,000 threshold.

That prompted an admission from Sir George that the system he set up "may not have been fully understood".

In another debate on September 9, Bone returned to the issue with a point that noted the conflicts that can arise between participative and representative democracy.

"[I]f these petitions are to be successful, there must be no whipping. What is the point of introducing an e-petition to Parliament that hundreds of thousands of people have signed, if the decision is to be made not by individual Members of Parliament using their own judgment, but by Members following the party Whip? I hope that e-petitions, at least for Government Members, will be subject to free votes."

I'm tempted to say that it is early days and these problems will be ironed out, but on the other hand these basic questions of processes and workflows were entirely foreseeable and should have been more clearly agreed before the website was launched.

The issue raised by Peter Bone, however, cannot be so easily addressed.

Update at 5:40pm: The backbench business committee has now scheduled the top two ePetition issues for debates. A riots debate in Westminster Hall on October 13 will include the issue of benefit sanctions. And on October 17 in the main commons chamber there will be a debate on release of the Hillsborough documents.

Update at 11.10pm: The backbench business committee has issued guidance for petitioners saying it "meets every week to consider requests for debates from any backbench Member of Parliament on any subject".

"This includes subjects suggested by constituents where there is no e-petition, or where there is a traditional paper petition. There is no restriction on the number of signatures required."

So it seems like the 100,000 threshold has no significance for what gets chosen for debate in Parliament. The main requirement there is that one or more MPs support a debate on it. But having the support of an MP is not a requirement for creating an ePetition in the first place. Hmm.

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I covered their initial discussion paper, and it is great to see that eDemocracy issues reached the final conclusions.

As the document notes, the party has not updated its ICT policies since 2003, which explains why it had little to say in response to the Conservative and Labour general election manifesto commitments on issues such as open data.

eDemocracy strategy (three cheers)

Perhaps the most significant proposal in the paper (which is not official policy until agreed by the conference) is the creation of an eDemocracy centre.

This would "initiate and encourage the use of tools by individuals, communities and government at all levels, funded by central government on a permanent basis".

It would perhaps go some way to addressing the continuing complaint of this blog, which is the lack of a UK eDemocracy strategy.

Parliament online (three cheers)

Also of note is the commitment to publishing more understandable information about the legislative process.

"A simple way of ensuring that this happens would be for Parliament to move from a 'document-based' approach to a 'work-flow' approach. This would mean that information presented about Parliamentary business would be aimed at 'the man on the Clapham omnibus', rather than those with a thorough grasp of procedure, as at present."

The implications of a change like that for Parliament's existing legislative data programme would potentially be quite profound.

The policy document also says citizens "should have the right to be consulted on policy decisions that affect them".

"Online public consultations should begin during the writing stage, not merely as rubber stamps after the fact."

That sounds rather like the public reading stage which the government has already begun trialing.

Also of note is a call to liberalise the rules governing online use of parliamentary footage.

ePetitions (two cheers)

While the government's new petitions website has been inundated since its launch, the Lib Dems also call for further improvements to the level of engagement offered by the system.

"[W]e believe that the system should also encourage the formation of communities around both supporters and opponents of the proposition. Petitioning should be more than just a signature; it has the potential to foster more genuine involvement in the political process, making it easier for people to express their views effectively."

This is could be a really important step forward, but ran into cost-cutting reality during the building of the ePetitions site.

The specification for the site indicated that there were no funds available for moderating comments on the site.

Much would depend, though, on whether alternative implementations could be found such as ranking comments or only reactively moderating those which are reported as abusive by other users.

It is an issue that needs addressing, and on heated issues like the death penalty even reactive moderating could lead to a significant workload.

Unless I've missed something, I've not yet seen a government department brave enough to outsource its moderation policy to the public. If cost remains an issue, though, someone might need to take the plunge and try it (The policy document does suggest that there should be more legal protection for websites which publish user comments, so perhaps the government could then make use of its own laws).

The other interesting point to note about the Lib Dem position on ePetitions is how close it is to the Conservative technology manifesto.

"The Conservative Party believes that government websites should not be treated like secure government offices or laboratories, where public access is to be controlled as tightly as possible. We see government websites as being more like a mixture of private building and public spaces, such as squares and parks: places where people can come together to discuss issues and solve problems."

A point of agreement for the coalition partners, it would seem.

eVoting (half a cheer)

On eVoting, the paper says that while "some work has been done" to answer the party's concerns, "the case for widespread implementation of remote electronic voting remains insufficiently strong to warrant abandoning the current voting system".

"However, we recommend that selective pilots are carried out to determine whether remote electronic voting might be a more suitable, secure and convenient option for the electorate than postal voting."

Having written about the case in favour of eVoting, and noted how recent announcements have made it impossible to implement, the call for more pilots at least keeps some momentum behind the issue.

But this proposal doesn't seem to make a huge amount of sense.

The costs of rolling out the system would be incured anyway, but the benefits restricted to a small number of people. And if, as the paper says, it is more "secure and convenient" than postal voting which is currently used then surely it also meets the standards required to be properly implemented.

And if I really wanted to cast my vote electronically and knew how to manipulate the system, I would presumably register for a 'postal vote' and then vote online. So it allows anyone access to the system but just puts a needless obstacle in their path.

Changing the law (three cheers)

Beyond eDemocracy issues, the paper also considers topics ranging from cloud computing to intellectual property.

On the Digital Economy Act, it puts forward two options for the party conference to decide on.

The first would repeal of sections three to 18 of Act, which relate to copyright infringement and the 'three strikes' controversy.

The second would repeal of sections 17 and 18 (site blocking) and offers the weaker formulation that sections 9-16 (technical measures to limit the internet access of repeat illegal filesharers) "should not be commenced until the government can demonstrate that the measures would be necessary and effective".

The #twitterjoketrial issue is also covered, with a call to rethink the clause that led to the conviction of Paul Chambers.

"[We] recommend amendment of primary legislation such as section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 so that messages are read in their correct context and so that people are not prosecuted for what are clearly attempts at humour, and where there is no intention to harm."

There are also concerns about cloud computing if it results in "large corporations taking control of enormous quantities of public or private data outside the reach of national law".

eGovernment (two cheers)

In the world of eGovernment there is support for open standards and an "assumption that public non-personal data belongs to the nation, so should be freely available".

"The government should ensure that it owns the code that it has paid for, and then share it for free within the public sector in order to avoid different parties paying external firms to develop the same software. We would like to see the public sector embrace collaborative development along the lines of websites such as Github."

There is also an interesting and potentially significant statement on supporting the use of open source software.

"One way of promoting open source would be for the government officially to support the use of those open source community websites which perform public services to a similar or better standard than official publicly-funded websites.

"The government could also consider providing resources to the creators responsible. Formerly it has been known for the government to attempt to replicate the work of such websites."

In part this seems to back the work of AlphaGov (which the paper also calls a "positive step") and the Martha Lane Fox review which called for content and services to be made available as APIs.

But it also seems to go further than that in suggesting that the government should avoid building some services altogether and simply help others to do so (perhaps a task for HMG Skunkworks).

It also adds that the evidence shows that "government ministers and senior civil servants – with a few honourable exceptions – do not 'get' information technology, and do not understand the social and political impact of their technology-based decisions".

To address this it calls for a new government office to "advise all other departments of ways in which IT can improve efficiency and quality of service to the public, and engender a culture of online engagement with the public".

"It would have responsibility for procurement policy and oversight of all major IT contracts across government, thereby promoting interconnectivity. It would also provide support with appropriate project management techniques."

How this would fit in with the the Government Digital Service and the Major Projects Authority is not discussed.

Update 19/08/2011: See also Simon Dickson's review of the policy paper on the Puffbox blog

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Image from 123rf.com

One of the least-developed sets of eDemocracy tools in the UK is websites which provide advice to people on how to vote.

These typically ask the user to answer questions on political issues before providing a personalised response on how their views compare to the policy stances taken by different parties or candidates.

I find these websites interesting because of their potential to distribute votes more widely among 'microparties' (should they exist) and thereby have disruptive effects on the political system.

However, some excellent research by Wall Matthew of Kieskompas.nl in Amsterdam, Krouwel André of Free University, Amsterdam and Vitiello Thomas of Sabanci University, Istanbul has raised some interesting questions about the interaction between online voting advice and political beliefs.

The Dutch context

Their paper looked at the effect of Kieskompas.nl on how its users voted in the 2010 Dutch legislative elections.

The Netherlands has more experience with such websites than anywhere else, given that they originated there, and also provided an interesting political backdrop to the study.

The research highlights a trend over recent decades to "more volatile patterns of partisan sentiment and of voting behaviour" with many Dutch voters seemingly deciding on which party to support during the course of the campaign. And the party system is fragmented enough to give voters a wide range of choices.

"In such a chaotic informational context, a clear, personalized vote recommendation may be more appealing to voters than it would be in a more stable, less fragmented system."

Research method

The research compared data from the site's log files on the recommendations given to users with responses to surveys of their views before they received the advice and again (on an opt-in basis so not representative) after the election.

It also sought to deal with the conundrum which arises from the fact that the site is designed to identify the party that is ideologically 'closest' to the user. This being the case, there is a need to distinguish between cases of the site exerting 'influence' over the actual vote cast by the user from instances of the site correctly identifying the user's voting intentions.

However, in a helpful piece of data collection the site asked its users to estimate the likelihood that they would ever vote for each of the main parties competing in the election. This could then be compared with the advice they were given and their actual votes in the election.

The findings

When users were asked to characterise what, if any, effect they thought the site had on their vote choice, 29 per cent stated that it had 'no effect' while 71 per cent said they consciously experienced some form of 'effect'.

Some 30.2 per cent indicated that the experience was one of 'preference confirmation' while 26.1 per cent stated that their visit presented them with previously unconsidered options.

Smaller numbers said the visit directly shaped their vote choice – either by helping them to choose among several parties that they were considering (9.2 per cent) or by leading them to vote for a previously unconsidered party (1.2 per cent).

However, amongst the survey respondents, 26.5 per cent followed the voting suggestion given to them by the website while 73.5 per cent did not.

This is not the full story, however.

"The crucial element for understanding the nature of the influence exerted by the kieskompas.nl site on its users is the interplay between users' pre-existing preferences and the advice that the site generates."

The report authors conclude that "people were only likely to 'follow' the advice issued to them when the recommended party was one that they were strongly considering voting for already".

But they add that "there is evidence for the existence of a causal [website] 'effect' on user vote choice".

"Ultimately, the findings reported in this article are relatively straightforward – it appears that our survey respondents were influenced by the automated advice that they received on kieskompas.nl, but that they did not follow the site's advice when the recommended party was not seen as a contender for their vote... before the advice was received.

"Being advised by a [website] to vote for a party which one was already seriously considering appears to crystallise that pre-existing preference, making it demonstrably more likely that the site user will go on to vote for the recommended party.

"Incongruent advice appears to be, for the most part, disregarded by site users when they vote."

So the lesson from this paper is that the site can have influence, but from the range of parties which the user is already inclined towards.

Transparency and credibility

The one piece of potentially interesting data that isn't covered in the study is how wide this range actually is in practice.

If voters are theoretically prepared to vote for one of a broad range of parties then the impact of the website could be larger than if voters are only leaning towards a couple of parties.

The authors also make one other sensible point which should be taken to heart by anyone running an eDemocracy-related site.

They state that "the political science community must police such sites, and total transparency of party coding and advice generating procedures must be the standard for a [voting advice] site to be considered credible".

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