In response to a freedom of information request, the Cabinet Office's Government Digital Service (GDS) has just sent me the proposal document for the ePetitions system (pdf) now being built for the DirectGov website.
The system is going to be developed by the recently-formed HMG Skunkworks so this will be a high-profile early test for them.
This is especially so given that the new site is expected to be more popular due to the pledge to allow petitions with 100,000 signatories to be debated in Parliament.
"This outcome to get debate in Parliament is new and is expected to attract much higher volumes than was seen with the Number 10 e-petitions site."
The development cost is put at around £46,000 before VAT (excluding design work and "widget production") and it will have, as before, three full time staff (costing £86,000 in total) engaged in what is described as "light touch moderation" covering checking for profanity, party political endorsements, libel and offensive material.
Given these costs, it remains a mystery (even allowing for changes in technology) how the Commons previously managed to estimate that a parliamentary ePetitions system would come with a £1.3m price tag in the first year.
Poisoned chalice?
Having announced the intention to build an ePetition system in December, it does seem to have taken rather a long time to get to the point where development work is only now underway.
The covering letter I received from the GDS FoI Team said that an earlier request I made for this information was turned down because "the specification at the time compared three different solutions and was commercially sensitive".
So presumably much of the time has been spent deciding how to fund the project and who should build it.
Still, just last week Francis Maude was telling MPs that the service will be completed by the parliamentary summer recess, which begins on July 19.
With four to five months of the year gone (the proposal is dated April 1) before work began, that doesn't leave a great deal of time to complete the project and the document (rightly) lists the "short timeframe" and "tight timetable" as a risk.
I've seen simpler development work than this take longer to complete than the nine weeks left until the deadline, so it would be a pretty impressive achievement if it is completed on time.
Equally, there is a possibility that the skunkworks has landed something of a high profile poisoned chalice, and if the deadline is missed simply due to impossible timescales then it is to be hoped that their more agile approach isn't mistakenly seen as the cause.
If much time was initially taken up deciding whether and how to outsource the project, then that should really be taken as proof of the value of having an in-house team that presumably could have just got on with it if asked to do so at the outset.
There is a great line in the proposal document about the role of the skunkworks in building the system: "The backend technical approach has been decided on by Number 10 and Skunkworks will simply deliver against those technical requirements."
It may not be that simple given the range of issues the system has to deal with.
Verification scaled back?
A petition's supporters will be asked for their name, postal address and email address, and will have to click on an email confirmation link to add their signature.
Although the system is intended to be open only to UK residents, it appears to have no mechanism for verifying that.
The document notes that anything other than asking signatories to tick a box to confirm their eligibility "will require a major increase in system complexity".
This verification process seems to have been significantly scaled back given that the Guardian was originally spun that the site would be aimed at "registered voters".
And this March, Commons leader Sir George Young was telling MPs that:
"Officials within the Cabinet Office are working on an effective verification system to ensure that petitions become a useful and mature tool for engaging with politics."
Perhaps this kind of functionality would be easier to run if the Cabinet Office comes to a positive conclusion about the Co-ordinated Online Record of Electors programme, which it is currently considering in tandem with policy discussions on individual electoral registration.
It also remains unclear what if any links there might be between a verification system for the DirectGov ePetitions and the verification required by the European Citizens' Initiative (pdf).
The ECI requires that a "relevant competent authority" in each country will be "responsible for the verification and certification of statements of support collected from signatories coming from that Member State".
"Taking account of the need to limit the administrative burden for Member States, they should, within a period of three months from receipt of a request for certification, carry out such verifications on the basis of appropriate checks, which may be based on random sampling, and should issue a document certifying the number of valid statements of support received."
But regardless of how well integrated the government's approach to this technology is, one effect of the email verification process may be to exclude those without internet access. The document states:
"As use of e-mail address is a key part of verification process the chosen solution will need to work with Race Online to establish how the digitally excluded can take part."
The Clarkson/Clegg Clause
There may be some sad news though for those who want to make Jeremy Clarkson prime minister or have Nick Clegg sacked as deputy prime minister.
The document says there will be internal discussions on "the validity of personality-based petitions, especially (news-chasing) calls for removal from office, and the grounds on which such petitions should be ruled out if this is the preferred direction".
I wonder if that option is also linked to the proposal that petitions "should have a cooling off period, prior to publication for signing, of a recommended 30 days."
The wording is ambiguous, but if it means that every ePetition sits in limbo for a month before it is opened for signatures, that will make it very hard for people to launch petitions on topical issues.
Cost concerns limit engagement
In a previous post, I suggested that the ePetitions system could be used to serve the Big Society by allowing signatories to discuss how to solve their own problems rather than just call for the government to fix them.
That kind of functionality, however, will not be included.
"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."
It is also not clear what feedback signatories would get if any action is taken on their petition or if it is debated in Parliament.
The person who creates the petition will be able to send one email to signatories once the petition is closed, although the document doesn't clarify if that would be available on all petitions or just on those which reach the 100,000 threshold.
Given that the government is offering to allow a citizen to send out a mass email using public technology (the first time that's ever been offered?) there is surprisingly little (in fact, nothing) said about procedures for doing that or vetting the content.
Equally oddly, there is no mention of email updates from the government or Parliament to signatories (it says a response may be "published" and there should be "the ability for the department to give status updates on each petition" but this could mean just on the website).
So a big petition could result in a mass email from a citizen who could still be disgruntled at the end of the process, but information about the government view or the parliamentary debate would not necessarily be passed on to those who might be interested.
And my reading of Appendix B (7.2.6) is that unless a petition reaches the 100,000 threshold it will not receive an official response in any event.
As I've argued previously, a decision to throw into the trashcan something that 99,000 people might have taken the trouble to support is bad practice when it comes to online engagement.
Widgets – but how effective?
But the proposal does include more interesting plans for widgets which would allow petitions or groups of petitions to be embedded in external sites.
A 'single petition widget' would be "targeted for blogs and personal sites" and would allow people to sign without having to visit DirectGov.
And a 'departmental widget' will display five to 10 petitions grouped by a similar subject matter.
But the specification seems to suggest a user would have to have an account and be 'signed in' to the main site before they could sign a petition through a widget, which would seem to undermine the point somewhat.
It is also suggested that XML could be used to provide a basic API for the ePetition system which could increase take-up of the system further.
The technology, meanwhile, will be open source in line with requirements specifically set out by Number 10. And hosting will be done in the cloud.
Nice summary.