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 7.11pm 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 7.09pm 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 6.53pm 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 6.45pm 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 two main conclusions of the inquiry were largely as predicted in this blog's previous post on the committee's inquiry.

Most importantly, the procedure committee says debates should take place in a dedicated time slot on a Monday afternoon in Westminster Hall, rather than in the Commons chamber.

"We recommend that the Standing Orders should be changed to allow the Backbench Business Committee to schedule debates on Government e-petitions between 4.30 and 7.30 pm on a Monday in Westminster Hall. The sitting would only take place if the Backbench Business Committee had set down the subjects of e-petitions for debate. The debate would take place on the motion 'That this House has considered the e-petition from [petitioners] relating to [subject of petition]'. We recommend that this change should be introduced on an experimental basis for one year and that its effectiveness should be reviewed at the end of that period. "

It has been argued that moving the debate out of the Commons chamber would suggest to the petitioners that their concerns are given a lower priority, though the committee rejects that and notes that frontbench spokesmen would be required to set out their positions during the debate.

Arguably more significant is the change to the format of the motion being debated.

Whereas last October's Commons debate on the Hillsborough disaster was on a motion which "calls for the full disclosure of all Government-related documents", presumably the new equivalent would have been that the Commons "has considered the e-petition relating to the disclosure of Hillsborough documents" – a much weaker formulation, with a vote not on supporting or opposing the actual disclosure but on agreeing just that the issue had been discussed.

Unless I have misunderstood the proposal, that seems like a backwards step.

The somewhat less significant recommendations call for clearer text on the ePetitions website and improved communication with the sponsors of the petitions. The committee says:

"We recommend that the Government should remove the sentence 'e-petitions is an easy way for you to influence government policy in the UK' from its e-petitions

website and replace it with a statement that more accurately reflects reality. We

propose: 'e-petitions are an easy way for you to make sure your concerns are heard

by Government and Parliament'.

The aim is to essentially downplay what might be achieved by an ePetition. And the MPs also call for more information for the petitioners to help them understand the process better, particularly when it comes to ensuring they know to contact an MP to take their petition forward.

For example, the ePetition on pensions uprating has reached the 100,000 threshold but so far no MPs have told the backbench business committee that they are prepared to lead a debate on it.

The committee says its report is focused on dealing with some of the more obvious flaws in the ePetitions system and does not address deeper issues of public engagement with parliamentary processes.

"We have not, in this short inquiry, sought to address wider questions about public engagement with Parliament, reform of the House's own procedures for petitions, the treatment of e-petitions other than those submitted on the Government's website, and the role of the Backbench Business Committee. We believe that all of these subjects are worthy of more considered examination by us in the future."

So another review of these issues seems likely, and could further improve public engagement with Parliament at some point in the future. It might be after this that the whole ePetitions system is transferred from the government to Parliament.

The committee also said that there should have been more consultation with Parliament before ministers took the plans forward.

"We agree with the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, Natascha Engel, that 'a lot of the problems that have arisen were perfectly foreseeable and had there been a debate, and perhaps even a vote, they would have been highlighted.'

"We regret that the Government did not see fit to refer its proposals for its e-petitions system to us or to place its plans formally before the House for debate and decision before the scheme was introduced."

I think the MPs are right that plenty of the problems thrown up were totally foreseeable.

That said, however, the government's use of ePetitions as a test of its move towards more agility in IT was always likely to involve something of a culture clash when pitched against the less-than-agile decision-making processes in Parliament.

If it had been left to Parliament, it seems more than possible that assorted committees and officials would still be pondering the £1.3m price tag previously estimated for the first year of such a project, while the government got it built and running for around £132,000.

It isn't ideal, but this is an issue where the 'just do it' approach was probably the right one. If the committee and the House wanted more control over the system then they could and should have built it themselves (although the procedure committee would probably argue that no time was ever given to vote on its previous proposals, which is a separate set of problems).

Without the government getting on with it, however, the significant level of public interest and engagement which has been generated (and which the committee welcomed) would never have materialised.

Disruptive technology wins out, and can now be iterated and improved having been introduced. Not a smooth process in this case given the inter-institutional tensions, but on balance probably as good as it was going to get. Better some innovation than none.

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

The latest minutes of the Cabinet Office's transparency board suggest business minister Ed Davey faced some scepticism when he discussed the PDC plans at the October meeting.

The Board told the minister "they were likely to be challenging in order to get a solution which achieved their aims", say the minutes.

"Clearly their main focus would be on how the proposals could best support Open Data and Transparency objectives, but they were also concerned on behalf of all users of the PDC's data."

During the discussions the Board also indicated that the PDC proposal has damaged the government's reputation on open data.

"It was important that the Government was able to make a clearer statement soon, in particular to reassure some parts of the Open Data community that the Public Data Corporation would be a step forward for Open Data, not a step backwards.

"Members considered that the consultation paper had already negatively affected the global credibility of the UK Government's commitment to Open Data.

"It was essential not only that governance of the PDC had opening up data at its core but also that it was driven by the needs of all data users."

Other points made at the meeting were that the value of the data was in its use rather than its sale and there should be "a clear road map" for releasing more data after the creation of the PDC.

There was also concern that "if there was greater involvement of the private sector (in line with one of the PDC objectives), the public interest in and ownership of core reference data was safeguarded"

© eDemocracyblog.com 2011. | 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 | 2 comments |

The bulk of the report looks at issues related to individual voter registration, but CORE gets a passing mention.

"A central electoral register, such as the one that is in place in Northern Ireland, would have made identifying duplicate entries much simpler, but in July 2011 the government decided to abandon plans for a Co-ordinated Online Register of Electors on the basis that it was not "proportionate, cost effective or consistent with the government's policy on databases and reducing the number of non-departmental public bodies".

"The Electoral Commission and Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg, director of Democratic Audit, both told us that without a central register, identifying duplicate entries would be difficult and resource-intensive, and in some cases impossible."

It is worth noting in passing that the MPs seem to look on CORE as a tool to effectively manage the electoral register, while in contrast the government spun it as being "principally to help political parties".

Both of them, however, miss the wider point about opening up the electoral system which I covered in the previous post.

Data matching not going well

The report goes on to say that the government's alternative to a central database "relies largely on data-matching with information held by other public bodies".

But the evidence on this does not appear to bode well.

Indeed, the first question would be how much of the £11m "saving" from scrapping CORE will have to be spent on running these data-matching processes.

Quite possibly more than £11m.

Data-matching pilots are currently underway, and the government hopes to assess early in 2012 whether they should be rolled out more widely.

But the MPs said:

"Representatives of three of the local authorities involved in the data-matching pilots told us that 'for all of us... it is very, very labour intensive'. All three authorities had hired additional staff to help run data matching, boosting staffing levels in their electoral registration sections by 50-100 per cent for the duration of the pilot. If it is to be successful, additional resource will be needed not only to match data, but also to follow it up with letters, and house enquiries if appropriate."

The data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) seems to be particularly unhelpful.

"Julian Bassham, electoral services manager for the London Borough of Southwark, told us that data-matching 'has been more successful for us at this stage in telling us what we do know rather than what we don't know... At the moment it does not look, from our side, like the DWP data will necessarily answer those questions'."

In Southwark a startling 25 per cent of DWP records "could not be matched to properties in the borough as known to the local authority".

Friday's report suggests the problems are partly due to data consistency and standards, with addresses be stored differently or house names having changed.

But the DWP also seems to be providing both not enough and too much data: no information on nationality and therefore entitlement to vote, but also too many unneeded records

"Without nationality information, it is impossible to know if someone is likely to be eligible to vote or not. We also heard that people are not removed from the DWP database when they die or leave the country, meaning that large numbers of records on the database are essentially inaccurate and confusing to electoral administrators."

Given such unpromising prospects, it isn't surprising that the Electoral Commission said it wishes to see "further options" for identifying unregistered electors "not only in the event that data matching is less successful than we hope, but also to deal with 'at risk' groups who are less easily picked up through the data matching approach".

Unsurprisingly, the MPs conclude:

"The evidence we have received... suggests that data matching will be of limited effectiveness, especially in identifying potential electors."

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

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.

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

This follows the news that despite reaching the required thresholds, two petitions have not been scheduled for debate as promised by ministers.

The statement flags up the lack of a coherent end-to-end process for the ePetitions, which were basically grafted on to existing systems.

This is the text of the press release:

Select Committee Press Notice

E-petitions

In July 2011, the Government created a new website which enables people to create and sign e-petitions. The Government also decided that once a petition has been signed by 100,000 people, the Leader of the House would write to the Backbench Business Committee to inform the Committee about the petition and to ask the Committee to consider finding time for a debate on it.

The Backbench Business Committee believes the e-petitions site is a very welcome initiative which has the potential to provide a new way for people to make their views known to Parliament and to have them debated. However, the Committee is concerned that some potential problems with the system need to be addressed in order to make it successful.

The Backbench Business Committee’s key concerns are:

• The Government is responsible for giving time to the Backbench Business Committee, and the time available to us is very limited – less than one day a fortnight. The Government has not provided any additional time to debate e-petitions and our existing limited supply is already oversubscribed.
•  The Committee has no power to schedule debates unless some Members of Parliament come forward to tell us that they wish to take part in them. However the Government has not provided any way to link petitions to Members of Parliament who wish to sponsor them on the e-petitions site, or any advice to petitioners on what they might need to do. Unfortunately, this means that no Members of Parliament have yet come to ask us for a debate on an e-petition.
• We want to work to make the new e-petitions a successful way for people to trigger debates in Parliament.

The Backbench Business Committee will:

• publish advice on our website to help organisers of petitioners know how to take their case forward.
• continue to press the Government to provide specific time for debates on e-petitions so that there is an effective way for the public to engage with Parliament.
• hold individual and group meetings with campaign groups and organisers of e-petitions to discuss how best to get their issues on the agenda.

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

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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