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Posted on 3 July 2009 | 6:30 pm
Lords of the Blog had a coming of age party on Thursday. A number of us celebrated with Hansard and House of Lords staff. The experimental stage has come to an end and we are now an established and ongoing operation. Our readers have helped make this a success – especially those who responded to the survey some months ago. I don’t think there are many people who question the importance of new ways to reach the public and we are the first legislature to have a blog of this type.
Many thanks to all of you for your help and support – we raised a glass to you!
Posted on 3 July 2009 | 1:38 pm
These are my links for June 17th through July 3rd:
In this study I examine some of the causes of those difficulties and make recommendations about how the IC might make better use of what they learn from their own experience. With DIA’s permission I have excerpted both the challenges and some of the recommendations from the larger study.
External tools are subject to evolutionary forces and either adapt or die quickly, whereas we are forced to put up with Paleolithic-era tools inside the enterprise because it’s a captive market. 21st century enterprises, however, aren’t putting up with that: they’re going outside and getting the best possible tools for their uses on demand, rather than waiting for IT to provide a second-rate solution, months or years later.
Posted on 3 July 2009 | 1:00 pm
We need to be able to authenticate ourselves online. The Government’s Identity Card scheme is in part an attempt to do this, and it’s really bad, but we do need some sort of system that offers more than traditional proofs of identity.
I’ve just read Alan Johnson’s article at Comment Is Free. Other than to say that it’s the same old Home Office nonsense, I shan’t deconstruct it further—Longrider has already done that with characteristic style (NSFW). What I’m more interested in is the sentiment expressed by Johnson’s headline: “We need Identity Cards, and soon”. While it is wrong, it does hint at a real problem, and one which has not been convincingly solved.
Posted on 3 July 2009 | 11:43 am
Lord Norton is sad to see the Law Lords go but of course my getting a new office in the Palace depended on their going so I’m selfishly delighted. But I do really approve the idea of the Supreme Court being detached from parliament, although of course it was in effect detached in the way it conducted its business. Rather to my surprise our new office has been completely refurbished already and is now, while not roomy or particularly luxurious, adequately equipped and has storage. Today the man from PICT, (the Parliamentary Information, Communications and Technology office) set up my computer. Our filing cabinets are red to match the carpet. Very lordly. I can now find my way there without getting lost. I must tell you there is a loo nearby which has a big notice on the door saying ‘ This is a unisex loo, gentlemen are asked to close the door’. And ladies?
Yesterday evening to a very special party in the lovely River Room in the old Lord Chancellor’s suite where we Lords of the Blog celebrated the launch of the new site and our going ‘permanent’. We aren’t a ‘pilot project’ any more. Definitely an A list event…..all your favourites Lord Bloggers were there and all the people who have made it happen, from the Lords Director of Information Services and Chief Librarian Liz Hallam Smith, who was wearing a definitely A list floaty dress, the Lord Speaker (whose room we were using) pleased to be out of her clerical garb into a summery suit on such a warm evening, to the team from Communications and the Hansard Society without whom none of it could have happened. We talked about all you bloggers of course, we’d love to know a little more about our ‘regulars’. We aren’t anonymous, do you have to be?
Posted on 3 July 2009 | 8:42 am
One of the aspects of the ongoing reorganisation of Local Government (i.e. scrapping of District Councils) is that Parish and Town Councils should become relatively more important in our democratic processes. I met Justin Griggs, (@JustinGriggs) Head of Policy and Development, of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) at the recent LocalGovCamp in Birmingham. He’s acutely aware that the image of Parish and Town Councillors (Local Cllrs) is not exactly dynamic and go-getting despite in some cases Town Councils are representing towns like Salisbury with 70,000 residents.
He is very keen to get some of those councillors online. The benefits could be enormous. Not only would it help the councils start conversations with their communities and boost their profile, but it would also help the councillors network amongst themselves. Blogs and social networks would be a quick and easy way for town and parish councils to share information, success stories and help each other achieve what they want. This peer networking aspect of blogging is useful but not often mentioned.
To help NALC along the way we sent them 40 copies of the CivicSurf DVD to go to each of the 38 county associations that filter information down to the town and parish councils. Hopefully it’ll get shown and a few more of our democratic representatives will benefit from blogging. Maybe some coaching might be in order.
Posted on 3 July 2009 | 5:13 am
For all the lofty strategic stuff I really ought to be doing, I do enjoy a bit of tactical, opportunistic digital engagement.
Right now, we’re chewing over the problem of what to do with big policy documents. You can make documents commentable, but that kind of feedback isn’t useful at every point in the policy cycle. You can shoot case study videos but the plays are often low and the costs quite high. You can (if you’re brave) get the policy team blogging, which might have the greatest impact long-term but is not a task for the faint-hearted or people in a hurry. So for fun, we’ve tried something else.
Last week, my new partner in crime flagged that a white paper on consumer rights was being published on Thursday. On Monday, we met with the team and brainstormed a range of ideas to promote the launch online in a way that engaged people with the policy. On Tuesday, one of them sent through a list of ‘killer facts’ - interesting stats about consumer rights and credit. From that, we thought a little quiz might be fun - showcasing under each of the killer facts what the white paper is committing to doing about the issue. Objective: to get people who would never normally tackle a 100 page PDF to understand a bit more about the detail of what is being presented, and what it means for them, in concrete terms, with minimal ’spin’ either from Government or the media. And from my new boss, a steer to ‘use more pink’.
By Tuesday evening, my colleague Rhys had mined the draft white paper for nuggets which we could use for our our questions. By Wednesday lunchtime, we had some working code (free to adapt/reuse) to display the questions and keep score, and by end of the day we had signoff from the policy team. The tool went live at 10am this morning, seeded via Twitter and embedded on the corporate site and social media news release. External cost: nil; staff time: approximately 8 hours in total.
We’ve been tracking the stats in Google Analytics and bit.ly, and the initial figures look respectable - 300 bit.ly clicks or so in the first hour, 500+ unique visitors most of whom seem to have gone through most of the quiz. Plenty of RTs (thanks @downingstreet and @tom_watson!) too. Big thanks to the agile BIS team who made it happen, particularly Neil, Kevin, John and Rhys.
It’s not the answer to deliberating policy online, of course, but it’s another tool in the toolkit, right?
Posted on 2 July 2009 | 4:21 pm
Do you work in local government?
Are you free on 7th August?
Fancy popping down to Victoria in London to visit the Google offices?
Oh, and get to hear from the real experts about how to make the most of Google services, whether search, analytics, maps, advertising, widgetising content, and more?
For the princely sum of, er, nothing?
Then you’re in luck.
Pencil that date in your diary. Keep an eye on #googlelocalgov on Twitter. More information will be released as it is confirmed.
This will be a ticketed event, and it will be first-come-first-served when it comes to places. You can’t afford to miss this one!
Posted on 2 July 2009 | 2:38 pm
There was a judicial sitting of the House yesterday morning. It followed the usual procedures. However, upstairs on the second floor where the law lords are located, everything is not as usual. Packing is already under way in preparation for the move to the Supreme Court.
The House will rise in just over two weeks. When we resume in October, the law lords will have decanted the building. As a result of assiduous research (I bumped into a law lord in the lift) I have some knowledge of the timescale: ‘The crates arrive on 15 July’.
I for one will be sorry to see the law lords go. There has been a benefit having them located in the Palace, a benefit for us and I believe for them. I was not persuaded of the case for the change. Neither were several of the law lords. Although there is no significant change in powers – the move is primarily physical – I nonetheless fear that it may result in some change in the relationship between the court and the executive, leaving the court exposed without the House of Lords being able to act as something of a buffer between the two. We shall see.
Posted on 2 July 2009 | 12:53 pm
Posted on 2 July 2009 | 9:00 am
Martin Uden, the UK’s Ambassador to the Republic of Korea (South Korea to most of us), is a prolific FCO blogger. Today he wrote about a meeting he had this morning.
I normally don’t say much about the many private meetings that I hold in Seoul, but this morning I called on Kim Dae-jung, former President of Korea and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. I went to see him to thank him for his continued attention to the imprisonment of his fellow Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi, and specifically for his contribution to the website set up for ASSK’s 64th birthday.
We discussed Secretary-General Ban’s visit to Burma tomorrow and the sad fact the ASSK’s trial is to resume the same day. It was encouraging to see the very clear focus that President Kim has on the plight of ASSK and his strong support for pro-democracy elements there. Coming from a man who did so much to bring democracy to Korea, I found it truly heartening.
President Kim kindly agreed that I could mention our conversation and his staunch support for the people of Burma.
Martin has crammed an enormous amount of into two short paragraphs that probably took ten minutes or less to write.
It’s well worth following the FCO blogs. A little rough around some edges and not every post is of interest, but there are some gems.
Posted on 2 July 2009 | 8:48 am
Both Houses rise for the summer recess on 21 July. We are going to be very busy over the next couple of weeks.
Take next week: on Monday, we have the Policing and Crime Bill (its third day in committee); on Tuesday, the Coroners and Justice Bill (its fifth day in committee); on Wednesday, the Second Reading of the Parliamentary Standards Bill; and on Thursday the Third Reading of the Political Parties and Elections Bill, as well as the Coroners and Justice Bill (sixth day in committee). The House is also sitting on the Friday for the Second Readings of four Private Members’ Bills.
Various contentious issues will come up during debate on most of the Government’s Bills. On Tuesday, the amendments dealing with assisted dying will be reached, a subject on which I did an earlier post.
The Parliamentary Standards Bill has been taken through the Commons in three days and constitutes a classic piece of rushed legislation. It has constitutional implications and has not been the subject of any serious prior consultation. In the Commons, the Goverment agreed to the removal of one clause; another was removed by a vote of the House. The challenge to the Lords will be to ensure that it receives serious, and not rushed, consideration.
In the Lords, amendments can be moved on the Third Reading of a Bill and on Thursday there are amendments tabled to the Political Parties and Elections Bill on tax relief for political donations. On the Coroners and Justice Bill, Lord Waddington is trying to remove a clause that the Government has included to remove what it sees as an unnecessary provision (now section 29JA of the Public Order Act 1986) stipulating that discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices shall not be taken to be threatening or stirring up hatred.
So plenty to keep us busy and issues on which readers will doubtless have opinions. I shall also be speaking in a Question for Short Debate (QSD) on Monday on the Government’s legislative proposals for constitutional reform. Time will be short, but I have a fair amount to say!
Posted on 2 July 2009 | 7:05 am
The latest Oxford Internet Survey was published a couple of weeks ago. It’s been going every two years since 2003, so starting to build up an interesting picture over time. There’s a splendid summary by somebody called Paul Reynolds writing from New Zealand which is rather more user-friendly than the one in the report itself.
I haven’t had a chance to go through it in detail yet, but my impression is of the internet becoming more invisible as it becomes more universal. It’s gone well past being a toy for geeks, and has become a place where things just get done. More universal does not, of course, mean universal. As both this report and recent Ofcom research make clear, internet access is still patchy, even before we get to the question of which of those who do use it are using it for what. The Ofcom research focuses on home access, and records 75% as either having the internet at home or expecting to within the next six months (the text seems to say six months fairly consistently, though the line description on the chart below says twelve). The remainder split into two main groups: a slightly larger one who feel they don’t want or need internet access (‘self-exclusion’ in the chart below), and a slightly smaller one for whom the barrier is financial.
The OxIS survey is much broader covering patterns of use across a wide range of activities. Lots of it, unsurprisingly, is showing more people doing more things, perhaps reflecting the growing maturity of internet users: 43% of respondents to the survey had been using the internet for more than seven years, with only 13% with less than two years’ experience – compared with 12% and 33% respectively at the time of the 2005 survey.
But there are also some interesting qualitative changes. As the authors note:
The 2009 findings reinforce the growing perception that the social implications of the Internet are beginning to be increasingly significant, such as in the area of media use and social networks. Perhaps it has begun to approach, if not pass, a tipping point at which the social shaping and implications of the Internet are becoming more apparent. The social significance of the Internet is suggested in findings across a number of areas.
The most dramatic of those is the growth in people who use the internet to ‘Update or create a profile in a social networking site’ – 49% in 2009 as compared with 17% in 2007, and with no earlier data presumably because it didn’t occur to anyone to ask the question. Posting pictures and photos is also growing fast, from 18 to 28 to 44% between 2005 and 2009.
Some of the same maturity is coming through in the use of government services. In 2005, 39% had used at least one online government service, but 61% had used none. In 2009, those proportions had almost precisely reversed: 59% have used at least one government service and 41% had used none. That’s useful progress, but falls a long way short of the internet being a primary channel for government services, even among internet users:
The percentage of Internet users interacting with e-government has been increasing since 2003—but remains lower than for e-commerce or general information seeking. Also, the UK remains low in comparison with other European countries with respect to e-Government, such as in interacting with ‘public authorities online’… Information seeking remains the most common egovernment activity, similar to the way as e-commerce developed (although slower). However, the frequency of online transactions such as paying for government services, taxes, fines and licenses, has started to increase.
Both the OxIS and Ofcom reports are well worth reading and reflecting on by anybody interested in public service delivery. They give a measure of the importance of the commitments in Digital Britain to address the issue of digital inclusion.
Final snarky note. Both the OxIS and Ofcom reports are available only as PDF documents which makes them hard to use and difficult to refer to. Digital Britain, meanwhile, has been republished in a way primarily designed to support commenting, but also supporting much more detailed linking, which is a big step forward if still not yet ideal.
Posted on 2 July 2009 | 2:55 am
Posted on 2 July 2009 | 2:30 am
Iranians are struggling for their rights and we, LGBTQs, are within people. We are active in this battle as citizens of Iran but we do not want to make any problem or additional pressure on our oppressed community.
From a letter to the author by Iranian gay students
Since the declaration of the results of the Iranian Presidential election on June 12 the world has been following what's been termed 'the green revolution' on the streets of Iran's cities.
Much has been written about how women are leading the protests and demands for democracy:
For these wives, mothers, sisters and daughters, their march to oust Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has everything to do with their desire for equal rights.
The regime in Iran obviously feels threatened by peaceful female activism. They branded as illegal the One Million Signatures Campaign initiated by women's rights groups in Iran, a campaign to change discriminatory laws against women in that country. Dozens of women involved in the effort have been harassed or jailed by the government.
But there are other, minority, groups suffering in Iran who have bravely joined the protests.
Lesbians and gays suffer severe social disapproval in Iran as in much of the Muslim world (or the Christian, see Uganda or Jamaica) but, as in Iraq and Lebanon, have historically been discreetly tolerated - gay nightclubs existed during the Shah's rule as they did under Saddam's.
Following the Islamic revolution in 1979 they have faced a state which threatens them with death (Iran is one of only a handful of countries where death is the penalty in law for what Iran's version of Sharia law calls 'Lavat') and which uses entrapment and 'morality police'. The regime's homophobic violence has also spilled over into Iraq where Shia death squads hunt gays.
Click image to enlarge map
Over the past ten years Human Rights organisations have documented numerous executions however getting hard information has been clouded by the regime's tactic - aware as they had become of their international image - of using other charges than homosexuality, such as rape.
This is what was alleged in the infamous case of teenagers Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni which produced images whose currency internationally against the regime is as strong as those of Neda, the young women shot by a Basiji militia during the protests on the streets of Tehran.
It is not confirmed that they were in fact gay and information about this and other cases is also clouded by their use by competing exile groups as well as right-wing American groups as propaganda. Nevertheless executions are known to have taken place. The boyfriend of the young Iranian gay asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi. who eventually won refuge in the UK, was killed by the regime.
The use of rape charges in particular is part of the hypocrisy and violence at the heart of the regime - rape is a tactic they themselves use to suppress and torture:
"It was on Saturday or Sunday that they raped me for the first time. There were three or four huge guys we had not seen before. They came to me and tore my clothes. I tried to resist but two of them laid me on the floor and the third did it. It was done in front of four other detainees.
"My cell mates, especially the older one, tried to console me. They said nobody loses his dignity through such an act. They did it to two other cell mates in the next days. Then it became a routine. We were so weak and beaten up that could not do anything.
"Then the interrogations started again. They said: 'If you don't come to your senses we will send you to Adel Abad [another prison in Shiraz] to the pederasts' section so that you receive such treatment every day.' I was so weak I did not know what to say. Then they asked for my contacts. I told them I had no contacts and I was informed about the demonstrations through the internet."
With the knowledge of what they face if arrested, the bravery of those not only on the streets but those who defy the regime and get word out via the censored and monitored internet is heroic.
All those (and it is around 32000) who have been following one young student on Twitter, Change_for_Iran, have heard first hand about the violent raid on Tehran University dormitories, his going into hiding in the city, his fears for his friends who could not be contacted and then his disappearance then reappearance on Twitter having got himself out of the city.
Gay students from Iran tell me that:
Iranian government is very sensitive about western media and they are monitoring the internet very carefully.
The students contacted me because of a letter which claimed to come from a gay Iranian student organisation which had been circulated by a Toronto, Canada, organisation. It had been quoted in an article I had distributed which was published by the Boston gay magazine Edge but none of them had signed it and they contacted 286 others throughout Iran and none of them had either.
They warned, in a letter signed by 28 named people:
"You will make a big problem for us by publishing this letter especially in this situation that many of students are subject of arrest by Iranian authorities."The fear comes from the suggestion of the existence of an organisation of gay students. Hossein Alizadeh, of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission says that these fears are well-grounded:
"The reality is that gay people are always the easiest target for the government to go after. I’m worried that if there is a crackdown, they will be targeting gay people. LGBTs have a lot to lose if the result of this is that the current government is more entrenched."Part of the government's crackdown on the 'Green Revolution' has been to, quoting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, label them "thieves, homosexuals and scumbags".
"Enough is enough. They’re going to the street to support the green movement and saying, ’We do exist, we didn’t vote for you and we want our votes back.’"LGBT activists in the west and their supporters and allies owe it to their incredibly brave brothers and sisters in Iran to do all we can to support the 'Green Revolution'
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Posted on 2 July 2009 | 12:15 am
Photo credit: Higgott
Not for the first time, I find myself working on a project which feels like it could be ended at any moment if one of the various people involved were to get nervous and pull the plug. It’s given rise to what my colleague described today as my ‘egg-and-spoon race theory’ of digital engagement:
Creative use of digital is a fragile thing: untried technical innovations are easily broken, often cobbled together, and at constant risk of being crushed when put under pressure (like Twitter c.2008; doesn’t mean it can’t be sorted out in time if it proves to be worthwhile).
Quite a few of us in the race are ‘amateurs’ (though we’re practising secretly): the nice thing about amateurs is they are generally good-humoured, supportive, open and willing to learn. But it means that we often simply don’t know if idea X or Y is going to work. Time will tell.
You have to watch the egg AND the finish line: another colleague of mine challenges me to decide whether I’m a strategist or a delivery person. The fact is, I still think you need to be a bit of both, able to watch the egg like a hawk and keep it stuck on the spoon, and make sure you’re aiming in the right direction.
Getting there takes space, steadiness … and a fair bit of speed: it’s important to have a bit of elbow-room to experiment and freedom to find out how others are doing it; it’s vital to keep on trying and give pilots and experiments a chance; and being able to respond rapidly to opportunities and requests makes a big difference.
Get it wrong, and you’ll end up in the sack race. Only kidding.
Posted on 1 July 2009 | 7:40 pm
I woke up this morning to the news that a website for the MOD and RAF project managed by my colleagues in the office and delivered by one of our appointed agencies, LIDA, had won Best Website at the CIPD Recruitment Marketing awards.
Naturally, I first heard this from Twitter – by way of the Director of Digital Engagement’s post as it happens – and there were some lovely details once I got into the office about how the host of the event, John Barrowman, handed over the award to Group Captain Gordon Bruce whose rank insignia is the same as that which Barrowman wears as his Torchwood character “Captain” Jack Harkness.
It’s nice to hear about COI successes, because for the most part we’re very low key. The spotlight usually goes to the client (MOD/RAF in this case) and/or the agency (LIDA), and the work that COI puts into it gets lost in the background. There are good reasons for this which I’ll go into, but it’s sometimes more than a little annoying to see others take sole credit for a piece of work that you know the team at COI has also spent many hours working hard on.
This segued into some thoughts I had a few days ago reading Emma Mulqueeney’s post about what the Home Office is doing with respect to digital engagement. It’s a great post, a real insight into what goes into pulling off such transformational projects; the irony is that Emma didn’t seem particularly wild about the post herself prior to posting it, and seemed to think many would find it dull, obvious or just not interesting. Far from it, as I think has been proved by the very positive response.
The moral of that story is how important that it is we should be getting the message out, talking about what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and carrying people along as we do so. Emma’s been great at doing that and long may she lead by example. She’s fortunate that she’s speaking of projects being done by her own Home Office team; COI on the other hand almost only ever gets to do projects that are commissioned through us by government departments and agencies. They’re not “ours” in the same way.
So how can COI do more to get the message out about what we do and how? How much of the visible leadership role should we be seen to take? Should COI be doing more along those lines? Is that seeking to take the credit too much and aggrandize COI at the expense of the message and the client? Or should we be more of the backroom boys making our clients (the government departments and agencies who pay our bills) look good and shying away from taking the credit ourselves?
Another example to illustrate the dilemma is COI’s News Distribution Service (NDS) which aggregates press releases from across government and makes them available either on individual departments’ websites, on the NDS website or via RSS. One developer, Dave Cole, picked up the RSS feeds and made them into Twitter streams (a very welcome development as far as COI was concerned); in his blog comment he noted that “the Central Office of Information run a rather good website called the News Distribution Service … Unfortunately, no-one knows about it as the COI doesn’t do much to promote it despite being ‘the Government’s centre of excellence for marketing and communications’.”
That irked me at the time, probably because there’s some truth to the barb: COI doesn’t promote its services and successes outside government. But again, for good reason: we’re providing a service to the government departments and getting their press releases out; that it’s done by COI or that there is an NDS site is rather beside the point and a distraction from the central message we’re being paid to get out there.
The few examples we’ve had of work which has been COI-generated have included the Improving Government Online initiative and the Usability toolkit, and it’s been good to have something that we can unreservedly promote. The team behind those two initiatives, the Digital Policy Team, are looking into blogging on a more regular basis in future to keep people up to speed on what’s happening with their work.
But the Digital Policy team are a relatively tiny and atypical part of COI: the rest of us work on client campaigns, procuring and project managing agencies for research, design, film, radio, publications and websites. A lot of that is frankly rather dull and routine – albeit vital – project management work. It’s hard to believe that anyone would find that interesting, even if we could find things to talk about that didn’t affect client and agency confidentiality. So what would work?
I’m interested to find out if anyone has any thoughts on this – what COI should be outspoken about, or whether it’s best left in the background. So what frustrates people about what they do and don’t hear from organisations like COI – how can we do better, in other words?
Posted in Government
Posted on 1 July 2009 | 7:27 pm
Posted on 1 July 2009 | 7:03 pm
Whilst away presenting a paper at the European Conference on E-Government ‘09 in London, I read a new report from Canada entitled: From Research to Results: A Decade of Results-Based Service Improvement in Canada.
This turned out to be extremely appropriate, since all three papers in the stream my paper was in identified the missing link between academic research and the e-government practitioners. In this excellent, small and readable 46 page guide, what Marson and Heintzman conclude is the key to Canadian success, it is the implementation of “action research focused on obtaining feedback from citizens that can be quickly translated by public managers into service improvment that citizens want and notice, including single windows, electronic gateways and service clusters.” They also list “service improvment methods that focus rigourously on the drivers of citizen satisfaction with government service delivery.”
Their documenting of the last ten years in Canada reinforces what this blog has been saying, that is, the need for web managers, IT managers, customer service managers and service managers to focus upon citizen satisfaction, but not as interpreted by by annual surveys or ad-hoc measurements, but instead by the continued monitoring of service delivery across the multiple channels.
The Canadians employed their academics and practitioners to prove that the customer is always right – but as to how far one takes their advice is down to the politicians and their budget management.
Posted on 1 July 2009 | 4:44 pm
Posted on 1 July 2009 | 9:00 am
