Rialtas.net - Government 2.0

This from Micah L. Sifry of Techpresident blogging from the Politics Web 2.0 conference at the University of London, Royal Hollaway, here below are some excerpts from Micah’s notes on one of the first keynotes:

Helen Margetts, of the Oxford Internet Institute, is presenting on “Digital-era Governance: Peer production, Co-creation and the Future of Government.”

Her key argument: We are seeing a shift in government management reform. For many years, the benchmark was “new public management,” but this trend is dead or dying, she argues. For the next twenty years, the dominant theme will be around digital technologies.

New Public Management was focused on disaggregation (breaking up large bureacracies into smaller units), competition (more use of markets, outsourcing, deregulation) and incentivization (privatization, public-private partnerships, performance related pay).

Digital Era Governance has three flourishing themes: reintegration (joining up bits of govt, sharing central processes, simplification at the same time), needs-based holism (redesigning processes around the citizen, coproduction, agile govt, client-focused structures), digitalization (open book governance, electronic service delivery, disintermediation, and web 2.0 for govt).

She notes that “we found it very hard to find examples of web 2.0 government” while working on the “Government on the Internet” report for the OII last year. It’s not there yet, but she is pointing towards where things are going. E-govt in the UK lags behind e-commerce: half as many people interacting with govt online compared to commerce sites (about 45% compared to 90%, if I saw the slide right)….

….What kind of management culture is needed for DEG to succeed? She argues that it requires really using transactional information to inform policy making, decoupling information analysis from control, being more oriented around customers, and getting more pro-active and experimental. These all seem like good principles, but I wish she’d give some practical examples to illustrate these points.

The citizen culture DEG implies includes the idea of “isocratic” government–helping citizens do for themselves; co-production, where the public sector provides a frame and citizens help deliver (like eBay enabling a cottage industry of sellers); co-creation of information as well. (Isocratic=personal democracy? I wonder.)

This new model can have positive incomes for social problem solving, she concludes.

Examples of Web 2.0 for government are difficult to find. People in govt have very 1.0 notions, like government shouldn’t be cool, it should be boring. “Our site is not aimed at young people,” she was told while working on the OII report. Only old-fashioned web uses make sense. Also, they were uncomfortable with the notion of partly-authenticated involvement, or para-state involvement–no integrating with society’s networks. Govt is also very text based.

What might it mean, if we overcome these issues?
-rich information, not just text
-deep search to allow people to learn more about their own conditions
-playing back information to users, about what they do and feel
-creating part-finished products

Please read the full post here.

Harry McGee Reports in the Irish Times today that John Gormley, the Minister for the Environment, last night unveiled some of the key components of the Green Party Paper on local government which will be published in 10 days’ time.

Speaking at the opening of the Green Party’s annual convention in Dundalk, Co Louth, Mr Gormley said it would deliver the biggest reform of local administration since 1898.

Some excerpts..

Mr Gormley said the new measures, when implemented, would allow citizens to be centrally-involved in decisions taken at local level. “I want to see citizens given a say in budgetary decisions. There is no reason why the people should not decide what the spending priorities should be in their communities. I will be examining the increased use of plebiscites which would allow people shape major decisions to be taken by town, city and county councils.”

Turning to his plans for a petition system, he said it would allow people gather signatures on pressing local issues and present them to the local council. The council would then be compelled to debate and decide the issue.

 Link to Irish Times Article

(Requires paid subscription)

See also some of my earlier posts:

E-Democracy , E-Petitioning and Local Government

MySociety.org E-Petitioning System

Communities of Practice Website for Local Government Employees.

Jeff Jarvis (BuzzMachine) is currently working on a book - WWGD? - What Would Google Do? in which he says he is reverse-engineering Google, taking the lessons and rules he finds in their singular success in the internet economy and applying them to other companies, industries, and institutions.

On his blog he sets out some of the ideas he has been playing with  for reaction, improvement, and argument, here are some excerpts:

* Abolish the Freedom of Information Act. Turn it inside-out. Why should we be asking for information about and from our government? The government should have to ask to keep things from us. Government information — every act of government on our behalf — should be free by default. We must insist on an aggressive ethic of openness. The exceptions should be rare: the personal business of citizens, national security, ongoing criminal investigations and court cases (while they are ongoing), and little else….

…* Government officials and agencies should blog. This ethic of openness should go beyond official documents and files. Openness should be part of the work habit of government officials and conversation with constituents should be an ethic of government. The open blog is merely a tool and a symbol for this — and a more efficient tool, I’ll add, than individual letters and phone calls. Hillary Clinton has said she wants agencies to blog…

…* Webcast government. The government should put C-SPAN out of business by videoing itself. Obama has said he wants to webcast agency meetings. I say the same should be the case for Congressional meetings and, yes, court sessions, including Supreme Court hearings. I’ve suggested that radio stations and newspapers should get citizens to record and podcast all their local government meetings….

…* Start GovernmentStorm.  If Dell and now Starbucks can do it, government should. These storms, powered by Salesforce.com, enable customers to make suggestions and then to vote and comment on others’ suggestions. In general, good ideas attract votes and conversations and bad ideas die on the vine. One sees trends emerge in the discussion: Starbucks should see that its greatest problem with customers now is not the smell of its sandwiches but the length of its lines. One also sees an incredible generosity from customers; they will spend their time telling companies what they want to buy and how to improve — and only a foolish company would not listen. We’ll surely do the same for our government. Indeed, the more we feel an ownership of our government — the more we can have a role, the more responsive it is to our wishes, needs, and ideas — the better, right?…

…* Personal political pages. I believe the ethic of openness will spread across society. The press demands that government be transparent, then so must the press be — and this applies to individual journalists. Likewise, as citizens demand transparency, so will they become more transparent. Ethics work both in two directions.

We are already seeing more personal transparency in society. We see it in Facebook and blogs and other social media, where people — particularly young people — realize that they have to open up something of themselves to find others who share their interests and where identity is made up more and more of what we create and what we make public. Just like Flickr, we are starting to default to publicness. Privacy is often put forth as the issue online but, as Facebook has learned a few times now, the real issue is not privacy but control of our information. …

Please Read the full post here…

Some interesting speculation on ‘Politics 2.0′ from Mike Farmer  On the Bonzai Real Estate Blog…

Imagine thousands of citizens vying for elected positions using blogs, social networks, websites that reveal all their qualifications, vetted by connected users across the country interacting with the candidates on a daily basis. It would be beautiful chaos, democracy in action, a true Greek ideal of citizen participation with our twist of representation in a Constitutionally limited government. It seems improbable but not impossible. One thing is for sure, the candidate who gets connected first and uses political 2.0 tools will have a definite advantage. The candidate who “gets it” will differientiate himself/herself in a new way that people will embrace.

Link

The Joint Committee on Broadcasting and Parliamentary Information has arranged Webcasting of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann. Live and archive Webcasting may only be viewed in accordance with the Rules of Coverage.

The Webcast Windows Media Player service is available on the Internet, and on educational and research networks, provided in association with HEAnet. The IPTV Web MPEG2 service is available on the Internet, where service providers permit multicast IP, also provided in association with HEAnet. The IPTV Gov MPEG4 service is available to Government Departments, Offices and agencies on the Government Networks, provided in association with the Department of Finance. The RF cable service is available in Leinster House and nearby Government buildings, provided in association with the Office of Public Works.

Would it be an interesting enhancement if there was an opportunity for members of the public to submit questions or to participate Live in some of these sessions? Perhaps even the facilitation of a public ‘back channel’ using Twitter or similar as is becoming so prevalent at many conferences and seminars today (or perhaps require user registration and do it on a subsidiary website)? This would allow members of the public to engage with each other on the issues being discussed rather than interacting directly with the speakers, and perhaps the TDs and Senators could be given the backchannel transcript at the end of the session for their own reference? This could represent another step toward true e-democracy.

The Dáil and Seanad Webcasting service commenced on Tuesday 11 October 2005.

Link

Excerpt From the editorial of the New York Star Gazette 16th March 2008

The power of public access has moved from using persistence and shoe leather to your fingertips and computer mouse. The transition is a long way from complete, but online databases, record keeping and search capabilities have the potential to open government records — owned by you the taxpayer — to anyone with a computer who wants to see them.
Public access best built around more online connections
The Internet can put records at the tips of taxpayers’ fingers, but only if officials have the will to do so.

Despite the legal right to most documents in New York state, there remains a disturbing attitude among some government agencies that public information is what they say it is. Either out of ignorance or arrogance, there are too many officials who believe the dispersal of public information is at their discretion.

That kind of attitude is wrong, especially when considering the principle repeated by Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York Committee on Open Government. All documents are presumed public unless officials can show that they fall into designated categories that allow the information to be withheld, Freeman says. We like that theory: public unless proven otherwise. More and more local government officials understand that and willingly provide public information even without the need for Freedom of Information requests, which can be time-consuming and totally unnecessary for information that is readily available.

With the ease of the Internet connecting the public to government, officials have seen the power of posting databases online that formerly would have been kept in bulky books tucked in a shelf in some office. Instead, anyone, whether the media or the public, can now access various records that open up government and actually take the burden off public employees by reducing paperwork and disruptive walk-in traffic.

Read more here… http://www.star-gazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080316/OPINION01/803160341/1004

Tom Watson MP Minister for Transformational Government, Cabinet Office

Below is an excerpt from the speech he gave at the Tower ‘08 conference on 10th March 2008.

You are all in this room today because you “get it”.

You know that the way that government configures public services is going to change beyond comprehension in years to come and you want to be part of it.

We all of us in this room understand the possibilities of technological advance.

Our challenge is to use it to make a difference to the lives of people we are all here to serve.

I began to understand the change going on in the world when I set up a political blog five years ago.

At the time it was seen as a radical act. People could not believe that I had opened myself up to such scrutiny and occasional daily abuse. I sometimes still wonder about that bit myself.

But the blog broke down the walls between legislators and electors in a way that interested me so I persevered.

Yesterday I read with regret the story of an anonymous civil servant blogger by the name of Civil Serf. Her bluntly written blog about life in Whitehall was taken down, after it came to the attention of the national press. Now, I’m not going to say that we should tear up the civil service code it’s very important that civil servants play by the rules, nor do I agree with everything she says, but surely a truly transformed government would be one in which speaking engagingly about life our public services would be far from newsworthy, and far from career wrecking.

When the MySociety people established the theyworkforyou web site, I began to understand how the old order of things was going to change.

Put simply, I began to understand the power of information.

So let me tell you where I stand.

I believe in the power of mass collaboration.

I believe that as James Surowiecki says ‘the many are smarter than the few’.

I believe that the old hierarchies in which government policy is made and crucially for you in this room the way in which it is delivered - are going to change for ever.

People tell me that we are entering a post-bureaucratic age. I don’t accept that. It?s just old thinking - laissez faire ideas with a new badge.

The future of government is to provide tools for empowerment, not to sit back and hope that laissez-faire adhocracy will suffice.

And as Kevin Kelly says “the bottom is not enough”.

A post bureaucratic age misunderstands the idea of an enabling state, one that moderates collaborative activity for a shared social good.

The collaborative state still requires leaders and enablers, doers and thinkers. It still requires public services but services with boundaries porous to external ideas.

Read the full speech here

http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/?p=1899

Photo By Jrawle from Flickr.

Interesting Series of blog entries and comments debating as to whether Civil Servant Bloggers in the UK should be governed by a set of blogging guidelines or whether adherence to the UK civil service code should be sufficient. This was all prompted by the recent posts of an anonymous blogger ‘Civil Serf’ known only as a 33-year-old civil servant who attacked the civil service for its lack of innovation and also highlighted incompetences regarding some of the UKs ministers. More on this here..

Tom Watson posted these suggestions on his own blog last Tuesday (11 March 08).

1. Write as yourself
2. Own your own content
3. Be nice
4. Keep secrets
5. No anonymous comments
6. Remember the civil service code
7. Got a problem? Talk to your boss
8. Stop it if we say so
9. Be the authority in your specialist field – provide worthwhile information
10. Think about consequences
11. Media interest? Tell your boss
12. Correct your own mistakes

Matt Wardman then continues the debate on his own Blog.

The Civil Service Code

The CSC is based on values not specifics, and as a result is both rather good and rather flexible. It seems to me that any blogging code should be based on a similar expectation and assumption of trust and professionalism - and should therefore be phrased in similar terms, rather than at a level of “do not use anonymous comments” (which are fine anyway if properly policed and can be beneficial - for example in a discussion of forced marriage).

The meat of the Civil Service Code covers, among other things:

* Integrity
* Honesty
* Objectivity
* Impartiality
* Political Impartiality

and I prefer those concepts, rather than a great fluff of detailed prescriptions and explanatory notes - whether brief or not. Civil Servants are grown-ups; treat them as such.

So my 10 recommended guidelines are in the next section.
The Blogging Code

1. 99.9% of Civil Servants are sensible and professional people of integrity.
2. Civil Serf is an exception in not behaving professionally.
3. Exception control for the 0.1% in this case should be by disciplinary action of the 0.1% under the Civil Service Code, not by creating guidelines for the 99.9%.
4. Blogging guidelines are only an unnecessary result of a need to be seen to take dynamic action.
5. A multiplication of guidelines like rabbits will only serve to generate more boundary quarrels, and waste more time in argument about whether the letter of the guidelines has been breached or not.
6. And then there will have to be a review of the guidelines to identify the weak points.
7. And a policy commission to evaluate the results.
8. And then there will be even more guidelines.
9. And they will have to be put under version control, and distributed to all the Intranets etc etc etc … sod it … go to 5 and continue in circles.
10. In summary - Ockham’s Razor just shredded the guidelines. Or the need for them. Just follow the Civil Service Code.

Required Action

Mr Milliband (or whoever) needs to issue a two sentence policy reminder:

You may write about your work on your blog, but must do so in accordance with the Civil Service Code, the “personal use of office computers” policy, and local policy. Discuss any specifics or questions with your line manager in the usual way.

Job done. Back to work.

And finally (unfortunately?) it seems that Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, is to set out new guidance to civil servants to cover blogging and online social networks following the demise of the “Civil Serf” blogger, The UK Times has learnt…

Sir Gus will shortly issue guidelines to tell officials whether they can start up blogs or use social networking websites such as Facebook and YouTube, and even if they can change details on Wikipedia.

A Cabinet Office spokesman denied that the move was directly linked with the Civil Serf blogger, believed to work for the Department for Work and Pensions, who has embarrassed Westminster with her revelations about officials and ministers.

Read the coverage on Times online.

I Just came across this document on the Data Protection Commissioners website. Its a projected vision of public surveillance in the near future, a dsytopian one as far as individual privacy is concerned. Thought provoking and worth a read.
A Report on the Surveillance SocietyFor the Information Commissioner, by the Surveillance Studies Network
Public Discussion Document September 2006

The essence of the paper is that we are ’sleepwalking into a surveillance society’

The surveillance society has come about almost without us realising..

It is the sum total of many different technological changes, many policy decisions, and many social developments. Some of it is essential for providing the services we need: health, benefits, education. Some of it is more questionable. Some of it may be unjustified, intrusive and oppressive. People may have many different opinions. But in fact most people know very little about the surveillance society: it is seen as the stuff of science fiction, not everyday life. So there has been very little public debate about surveillance. The surveillance industry is already massive and (especially since 9/11) is growing much faster than other industries : the global industry is estimated to be worth almost $1 trillion US dollars, covering a massive range of goods and services from military equipment through high street CCTV to smart cards. The surveillance society has come about often slowly, subtly and imperceptibly and by the unforeseen combination of many small paths into one bigger road. It is a road whose direction we urgently need to discuss and debate. Read on

The Data Commissioner’s website is an extremely valuable resource for data controllers, perhaps you are one?

Just thought I would draw attention to New Zealand’s E-Government Website
http://www.e.govt.nz/

The site is a resource for government agency people in New Zealand who need up-to-date, easily accessible and authoritative e-government information & resources to assist them to achieve their agency’s e-government goals.

The e-government goals:

• By 2007, information and communication technologies will be integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes.
• By 2010, the operation of government will be transformed as government agencies and their partners use technology to provide user-centred information and services and achieve joint outcomes.
• By 2020, people’s engagement with the government will have been transformed, as increasing and innovative use is made of the opportunities offered by network technologies.

The site contains information on the E-government Strategy, the history of the programme and the ongoing work programme.

This page outlines how the site can be of benefit to government agencies in NZ and can aid collaboration between agencies.

http://www.e.govt.nz/services/workspace/workspace-tools.html/view

The site also outline standards and best practices in a number of different areas from procurement to policy creation to online authentication.

It also hosts information on the NZ Government E-Government Strategy
http://www.e.govt.nz/about-egovt/strategy/nov-2006/index.html

The site also serves as a portal for access to the NZ public sector Intranet

http://www.e.govt.nz/services/psi

The Public Sector Intranet (psi.govt.nz) aims to provide a single point, accessible by all public servants, where they can share information with their colleagues. It makes it easy for people to find information they need for their work, and make contacts in other agencies. It enables a sense of community, shared interests, and cross-agency cooperation.

The Public Sector Intranet (PSI) is provided by the NZ State Services Commission. The Commission launched PSI as a full production system in mid-June 2006.

The homepage lists some outline information about the Public Sector Intranet:

Why do we need PSI?

To achieve shared outcomes and work across agency boundaries, we need tools which support cross-agency work. We can all use PSI to gather together useful information across agency boundaries.

Benefits of the PSI

We can organise and share information and resources for our colleagues to reuse, reducing duplication of effort and promoting collaboration. We can share good practice and specialised services designed for cross-agency use. We can find and access our online-communities and locate useful contacts.

There is no charge for joining or using the PSI.

What will be on it?

Information you can expect to access through PSI:

• news and links relevant to all agencies
• toolkits and good practice
• online communities and cross-agency projects.

How can my agency join?

• Most public service agencies, non-public service departments and Offices of Parliament have already joined
• State sector agencies that are interested in using PSI, are invited to contact the PSI Team.

The NZ ‘E-Government’ Strategy seems to have been recently expanded into an overall ‘Digital Strategy’ involving a large degree of public consultation

The Digital Strategy is about creating a digital future for all New Zealanders, using the power of information and communications technology (ICT) to enhance all aspects of our lives. It is an action plan for ensuring New Zealand is a world leader in using information and technology to realise our economic, environmental, social and cultural goals, more on the digital strategy…

It seems to me that New Zealand may be leading the way in developing an approach to formulating Government Technology strategy. Hopefully a few of the powers that be in Ireland are paying some attention…