Public Sector Bloggers

The BBC as a portent

An excellent post from Chris Dillow:

The BBC’s proposal to cut 6Music and the Asian Network is, I fear, a portent of coming cuts in government spending - because it shows that when a top-down organization makes cuts, it does so on the basis of power, not efficiency.

Disagreeing with the TPA's budget cut analysis

I more than disagree with the analysis proffered by the Tax Payers’ Alliance on how to implement budget cuts in the public sector. Stef uses the euphemism ‘thought provoking’ to capture his thoughts on the article; I prefer to call it a load of crap, for the following reasons:

1. Mark Wallace has it precisely the wrong way around: Councillors may be elected, but (in my experience) they are generally poor quality. It’s the managers, particularly senior leadership within local authorities, who run councils. So the idea of Councillors sitting down and figuring out where they want cuts made is ridiculous.

2. The idea of the council officers, by default, opposing spending cuts. I fear this view is informed more by Wallace’s ideological persuasion than evidence. Ask practically anyone working within local government, but particularly middle and senior managers, whether or not 10% savings are possible and they’ll laugh: that could be done easily. Paradoxically, Wallace acknowledges this when he says:

Councils should introduce reward schemes to encourage staff to propose successful ways of making savings. Today’s grumbles at lunchtime about this or that pointless form, or the absurdity of having to make two trips in the van instead of one, could be transformed into tomorrow’s practical spending cuts.

3. And therein lies the third problem with Wallace’s suggestions: incentivising staff to reward their ideas for successful savings. Wallace has clearly never worked in the public sector, particularly not as a senior manager (as his profile attests), and so has no direct experience of the complexities of introducing such a scheme. Such complexities would include the question of attribution (how do you know whose idea it specifically was? what if it was a team idea? how do you then share equally any benefits accrued from the idea?) and the issue of how much management time it would take to manage and address the inevitable conflicts. Complexities would also involve the question of knowing just how much has been saved: the direct and indirect costs of identifying savings arising from one idea would be disproportionately larger than the savings themselves in the vast majority of cases.

There’s a great irony here. By rubbishing his scheme, Wallace will accuse me of being precisely the kind of manager who stands in the way of Councillors (or whoever) driving through the change he perceives is needed within local government.

What his superficial analysis won’t have noted is that it’s more likely those managers are precisely the people who recognise the change needed, and are most likely to be driven by a public duty to deliver the best services and outcomes for local residents than some ideological perversion that places less public sector spending above any other consideration.

Preview of what's coming

Stuff I’ve seen March 7th through to March 9th

These are my links for March 7th through March 9th:

• The State of Social Media Around the World 2010 –
• JFDI vs Being Boring – "Don’t let strategy and process get in the way of doing good stuff. At the same time, don’t JFDI and find yourself exposed."
• New Proposal – “Community DigiLand Bank Register” « Birmingham Social Investment Trust – Interesting idea – perhaps citizens can put and on the map and someone in the council can flag it if they own it – with information about who to talk to?: "One idea that came out of the discussion would be for the public or council owned land to be registered and available for all communities to view on a new web based ” Community – DigiLand Bank Register”, maybe using googelmaps as a base and thereby allowing citizens to geotag and photo any plots they become aware of or are interested in."
• WxWM – Sue Ellen Haz A Thirsty | Saturday Social 13th March 2010 « WxWM – "There are no tables booked. We live life by the seat of our pants and guffaw loudly in the face of caution and planning."
• OGC – Home – "The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is an independent office of HM Treasury, established to help Government deliver best value from its spending"

The web as a foreign policy issue

You need to be multi-skilled to work in a government digital team these days. We expect members of the digital team in the Foreign Office to be simultaneously expert in the psychology of human computer interaction, international politics, and RDFa. Some say that there are as many as 47 areas of expertise for government digital teams. I'm handing over my blog today to my colleague Shane Dillon who's been thinking deep thoughts about a 48th - the web as a foreign policy issue. Shane writes:

In the last two years the web has moved from the tech pages to the front pages. Google's decision to pull out of China is just one example. The web matters to businesses and governments. And in western societies some view access to the web as a right on a par with access to drinking water. We have come a long way.

I would argue that we must now treat the web as a foreign policy issue in its own right. By taking the web seriously as a foreign policy concern a state can advance its interests and influence. 

The debate is happening around us anyway - take Hilary Clinton's recent speech on internet freedom. The speech was widely reported, and for some like Daniel Calingaert it did not go far enough.

Eygeny Morozov has made an important contribution to the debate showing that for all the idealism that surrounds the web, it is dictatorships that are using the web effectively against those who would seek greater democracy. Morozov offers an essential realist critique of our understanding of how states use the web. Realism (as a founding paradigm of international politics) tells us that states exist in anarchy - to some extent the web is even more anarchic.

Morozov takes aim at idealists like Clay Shirky who views the web in more idealist terms, arguing that the tools offered by the web can affect social change, like the printing presses of Gutenberg's age.

I am perhaps caricaturing their positions as realism versus idealism but I think this new debate does closely reflect that age old foreign policy debate. Should a foreign policy focusing on the web have a moral position, or instead see the web world for what it really is?  

So what does the web world actually look like?  From its inception, thinking on the the web has provided a great deal of idealistic internationalism - the web not as a country but a virtual space for all to use productively.  But that view is now challenged as we see states attempt to control the web within their own borders, erecting ever larger firewalls and deploying filtering technology to control what their citizens access over the web.

Attempts to control the web by states can present serious human rights issues. And cyber attacks have the potential to cause major disruption to the day to day running of a state. But what else should a foreign policy for the web cover? Some ideas:

- Web freedom - democratic states may want to make the web as free as possible to aid the promotion of democracy.
- Play a part in negotiations that aim to shape the future of the web through international legally binding agreements.  
- Communicate and explain domestic web legislation to a foreign audience.
- Deploy research analysts to study the web in foreign policy terms as you would a state, an idea, or an international organisation. 

Britain has a great tradition in the academic field of International Politics, founding the first department of International Politics in 1919 at the University of Aberystwyth, right up to the British school led by Hedley Bull.  The UK has a chance to make its mark by leading on the issue of the web as a foreign policy issue, backed by a thriving digital culture and exceptional web expertise across UK government.

talk about local at the National Digital Inclusion Conference

It’s all go in talk about local land.  Last week Mike and I were in Hereford for a fun-packed workshop at Borderlines Film Festival and this week we’re off to London for the National Digital Inclusion Conference 2010.

The theme for NDI1o is ‘Digital Participation: Passing IT on’ and that’s exactly what Mike and I will be doing with an open, drop-in social media surgery table in the exhibition area of the conference.     Last year I joined the We Share Stuff team, who did social media surgeries during Conference in addition to their Fringe event, which were very popular.  On the second day of the conference myself and a couple of others went outside the conference venue to talk to local people about what digital inclusion meant to them, which resulted in some great vox pops films, such as Ben Whitehouse and I talking to a protester.

So if you’re at the National Digital Inclusion Conference this year and would like to talk with us about issues you think social media might be able to assist with, or get advice on any elements of social media/networking that you’re interested in, come and join us over lunchtime either tomorrow Wednesday 10th March or Thursday 11th March.

We’ll also be facilitating a barcamp-style session at 4.00pm tomorrow as part of the Digital Skills for All workstream, putting together an expert-led SWOT analysis for social media in the digital inclusion sector.

We’ll hopefully see some of you there!

Jon Venables

This very powerful and emotional case is bound to lead to intense  speculation. We do not know for sure what is alleged  and we do not want to prejudice any court proceedings – or I hope we don’t!

There was a question in both Houses yesterday and in the Lords the judges and lawyers were very vocal. I want to put the following quote in full from Baroness Butler – Sloss because of her involvement in this case. I  find myself in large agreement with her. The quote is :

Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I declare an interest as the judge who made the order for the anonymity of these boys. I respectfully agree with everything that the Government have done so far. I have a rather different question. This young man may or may not be tried; he may or may not have committed offences. There is at least the possibility that he has committed no offence. Consequently, he may, therefore, be allowed again to be out on licence. I hope the Government will take carefully into account the enormous importance of protecting his anonymity now and if he is released. Those who wanted to kill him in 2001 are likely to be out there now.

A timely reminder of the intense passions raised in this case.

The full transcript of the question is  here: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200910/ldhansrd/text/100308-0011.htm

Why BBC, have you stopped a useful app? – BBC Quashes iPhone iPlayer App – PCWorld

It seems bizarre to me that a publically funded organisation would stop an application from becoming available that actually delivers very very good functionality and offers the same level of service to an iphone as you would get from there website.

I must question the motives of the BBC here.

“We were given a cease and desist order by the BBC legal department despite our best efforts to try and meet the BBC’s requirements in any way possible,” Newby said.

“We were willing to make the app available for free and consume the development costs ourselves but this was also quashed.”

Rewat.ch would also have enabled users to download episodes from the BBC iPlayer service for the length of time set by the corporation. For the first time it would have been possible to watch BBC shows on the way to work, for example, on a tube or train.

via BBC Quashes iPhone iPlayer App – PCWorld.

I am a regulary user of the BBC iPlayer and often catch up with shows using a wifi connection – but this app would have solved the portability of the service to wifi black spots.

It would have also provided notification of when my favourite shows were available.

The reasons behind this decision don’t make sense and the BBC’s own plans to develop iPhone apps do not indicate this level of functionality for the end user.

There is a great lesson here for the public sector as a whole. If someone wants to design a service based on your offering and makes it better and more accessible my recommendation is to allow them to do it but work with them to make sure it offers value to all involved.

Filed under: Learning, Local Government Tagged: bbc, iplayer, Local Government

Equality matters

Two issues of equality to cover today.

1. Kathryn Bigelow has become the first female director to win the Best Director Oscar. For all you men out there who think women don't face any sort of institutional or societal barriers, I'll just re-emphasize that Bigelow is the first female director ever to win, in nearly 80 years of the awards.

2. The Vatican has been hit by a gay sex scandal, with a chorister there being sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for papal gentleman-in-waiting. Notwithstanding the obvious problem with the words that follow (as if women could ever be involved in the church!), the only way this could be funnier or more ironic is if it were lesbian prostitutes being procured for women bishops.

A challenge to Open Democracy – Bloggers excluded from council’s Twitter accreditation

I have read with great interest an article and supporting posts about Tameside Councils decision to accredit professional journalists and allow them to tweet live within council meetings and in effect ban anyone else from doing so.

A council in the north of England has taken the unusual step of accrediting professional journalists to report from meetings using Twitter in a move that in effect bans local bloggers.

The decision by Tameside council means that local bloggers, members of the public and even their own councillors are not permitted to tweet because they are not members of the press as defined in law by the Local Government Act of 1972.

via Bloggers excluded from council’s Twitter accreditation | Media | guardian.co.uk.

Now I’m guessing here that Tameside Council may have taken a different view if they were webcasting their meetings live like Devon County Council and many others do.

The use of the Local Government Act 1972 to in effect reduce the ability of even the councillors themselves from tweeting from within the meeting seems a step too far. Details of the Councils Official response can be found here.

Any council who is currently webcasting their meetings would find the same decision impossible to impose, unless they stop webcasting their meetings to the public. The challenge of course in this scenario is that anyone from around the world can effectively tweet live whilst watching the “live” webcast or even comment after the event via the archive.

So I guess my question related to this is:  Are we really using the act to manage the supposed abuse of twitter? Or are Tameside Council trying to solve another problem relating to individuals and what they say?

Either way, I am concerned about the longer term implications should other councils see this as a way to “control the message” and restrict the opportunities to engage and participate in local politics and decision-making.

This feels like we are going back to a “behind closed doors” approach which is in my opinion “anti social” and not very “democratic”.

The challenge here is that we need to support councils and more importantly reach the staff working inside to better understand the potential of these tools to increase participation and involvement in local politics and decision making.   We also need to have an effective discussion in the wider public sector about the role social tools can play in shaping public services.

Filed under: Community Engagement, engagement, Local Government, participation Tagged: democracy, eDemocracy, eParticipation, Local Government, online participation, participation, twitter, Virtualth

RIP Mark Linkous

links for 2010-03-09

Quango merger quango

The news came last week that the cost of setting up the Equality & Human Rights Commission was £39m. As well as criticising the cost of the creation of the EHRC from the 3 existing equality commissions (disability, gender and race), the Committee of Public Accounts also said that the organisation itself wasn't ready for business with key business areas still needing work.

According to the committee, the process for creating the EHRC was 'patently flawed'.

I worked for the Disability Rights Commission in the 18 months leading up to the merger and at the EHRC itself for around 8 weeks. Indeed, I was there on day, as this post attests. It would thus be quite wrong of me to say whether or not the Committee's findings are a fair reflection or not, since I contributed a small part to the transition process and know many of the individuals well who were heavily involved.

My experience of the merger, however, led me to an idea at the time that I still think now would be useful: some form of team or body within central government that can advise or lead the process of mergers within the public sector.

The thinking is simple: the process of merging organisations is hugely complex, but once you've been through it once, there is a huge amount of experience you could use if you had to do it again. However, you wouldn't want to negate the 'local' experience and knowledge that comes from staff within existing bodies. This is effectively the business case for using consultants in such scenarios.

Thus, instead of bringing in often expensive organisational design or merger consultants, a team could sit within the public sector - possibly, say, within the Cabinet Office - and support such transitions. Such a team could even be formalised to be a quango in itself, advising on the merging etc. of quangos.

To take the time at which the EHRC was created: at that same time, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was also being created from merging together the Healthcare Commission, the Commision for Social Care Inspection, and the Mental Health Act Commission. I suspect many of the same issues that came up in the forming of the EHRC arose during the CQC merger, and invaluable lessons could have been applied to save both time and money, and ensure the new body was effective from day one.

Over the next spending period, it is inevitable that quangos and all sorts of public bodies will merge or have their responsibilities moved to another body. A quango merger quango (I suggest this name only half tongue-in-cheek) would be a cost-effective way of ensuring the lessons from the creation of the EHRC and other such bodies can be applied in every new such scenario.

Transformed by you

Simon Wakeman has blogged about the upcoming Transformed by You event in Medway, jointly organised by Medway Council and Kent County Council.

It’s a cross between LocalGovCamp and SIcamp, and looks like it will be a really cool day. Not least because of the involvement of Simon and also Kent’s Noel Hatch – two real innovators and thinker-doers in local government.

A Uservoice forum has been set up to canvas ideas for how people’s local areas in Kent could be improved – perhaps by using the internet, perhaps not. You can then vote on the ideas you think will work best, and the top ones will be taken forward on the day, where they will be discussed and where real life geeks will put some prototypes together.

Simon writes:

Public sector organisations face growing pressures to deliver bigger and better services with far less money. Kent County Council and Medway Council recognise that by tapping into local creative thinkers they could go someway to resolve some of the issues that are emerging.

Digital technologies are effective at doing just this. More people are talking and sharing ideas online in ways that weren’t possible before. Technology also provides opportunities for individuals, businesses and other groups to create innovative models to meet these new demands.

You can sign up for a ticket for Transformed by You on the Eventbrite page. There is also a Ning site with some conversations and further information on it and the opportunity for some pre-event networking.

I’ll be there, and I think it’s going to be a very interesting and productive day.

Possibly related posts:

• Whither government 2.0?
• LocalGovCamp London is on!
• City of Angeles moves to Google Apps
• The biggest mistake councils made with online engagement
• Four rules for councils’ democratic engagement

SnapGroups

I don’t seem to write much about new tools very often, which is a shame, as playing with stuff is one of my favourite things in the world. Anyway, here’s one I cam across this morning.

I was alerted to SnapGroups thanks to ReadWriteWeb. It’s a neat little service that mashes up real time status updates – in other words, Twitter – with traditional forums.

So, rather than just posting your message out into the big list of what everyone is writing, instead, you post to specific groups, which either you have created, or where you join one created by others. You can’t, as far as I can tell, post one message to more than one group. Probably good for spammy reasons, but it could get annoying if something you have to say is relevant to several groups of people.

My SnapGroups profile is here, and I created a group called govstuff here to have a play. Feel free to join in!

So SnapGroups is pretty neat, but probably not, to my mind, sufficiently better than what is already out there to disrupt people’s established patterns of behaviour, which is to go to Twitter.

However, the guy behind the service, Mark Fletcher, has some serious background – he built the software that turned into Yahoo! Groups, and was also responsible for Bloglines before Ask bought it a few years ago. So maybe there is more to this – I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it.

Possibly related posts:

• Zoho Discussions
• Adventures in open source land
• The Community Roundtable
• Ideas, conversations and artists
• Is government a knowledge business?

Find what I’m reading

I’m still having a couple of technical problems here getting my delicious bookmarks posted up to the blog.

Just in case this is causing you a great deal of anguish – and I completely understand if it isn’t – you can find out what stuff I think is worth reading in two places:

• there’s my delicious page itself, which also of cause has its own feed
• and I have just started sharing things in Google Reader, and you can find all these items on my public page – which, again, has a feed as well

Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon.

Update: This should now be fixed. The issue was, I think, with Delicious blocking access to the RSS feed – presumably they didn’t like me checking it automatically every hour to see if there was anything new there. By piping the Delicious feed through Feedburner, the problem is averted.

Cambridgeshire: Confidential Patient Letters Go Astray

A review is underway after NHS patients in the East of England received confidential data about other people.

NHS IT body, Connecting for Health, has apologised after patients’ details were accidentally disclosed in a mailshot designed – ironically – to reassure them about the security of their medical records.

BBC Look East reports a number of recipients opened their envelopes to find letters addressed to other patients.

The letters – marked ‘Private and Confidential’ – showed the patient’s name, address and personal NHS number.

NHS Connecting for Health, which sent the letters on behalf of primary care trusts in the region, blamed a contractor for the error.  It said in a statement:

“Some PCTs have been made aware that, in a number of cases, more than one patient letter has been placed in an envelope.  The letters contain no medical information.

“The mailhouse supplier responsible… has undertaken a rigorous review of their processes.”

Source: BBC News, 7 March 2010.

Oldham Council: Another Laptop Theft and Data Loss

A laptop and a laptop bag containing documents with ‘employee information’ were stolen from Oldham Council over the weekend, it is reported.

The theft follows an incident in January 2009 when a person wandered into Oldham Civic Centre and walked out again, apparently unchallenged, wheeling 17 council laptops in a recycling bin.

Council staff were reportedly told the information stolen in the latest breach was ‘limited to names, job titles and salaries of a number of employees’  and that the risk of misuse was ‘minimal’.

Source: Manchester Evening News, 3 March 2010.

Wigan: Patients’ Details ‘Found in Alley’

An investigation is underway following reports that three GP diaries containing personal details about hundreds of patients in Wigan were found dumped in an alley.

The diaries, dating back to 1988, 1990 and 1991, are reported to contain the names, addresses and medical complaints of patients requiring visits by doctors.

A member of the public, who did not wish to be named, is said to have discovered the diaries lying in an alleyway behind a disused surgery.

Source:  Wigan Evening Post, 22 February 2010.

DWP: Medical Details Released to Wrong Person

The Department for Work and Pensions has apologised after an administrative mix-up resulted in sensitive personal information being sent to the wrong person.

The documents were said to include the medical history and National Insurance number of the individual concerned.

Source: Lancashire Evening Post, 22 February 2010.