Back in February the Commons backbench business committee invited submissions on the issue of ePetitions as it prepared to review its work over the parliamentary session.
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.
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