COSLA Digital Media Team: Response to Call for Evidence
In a time when there is a widely perceived reticence to register our votes in local
or national elections, the adoption of a new openness should encourage
participatory politics and that can only be beneficial in terms of promoting
democracy at a local level – but only if the suggested outcomes are acted upon.
Transparency through Digital Engagement is a means of engaging with citizens,
communities and businesses. This then provides:
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accountability;
innovation and transformational projects;
empowerment of citizens in the running of services;
a driver for local economic growth.
The only way to achieve the best results on each of these is to start from a local
level and engender transparency that is “baked-in” to all services, which in turn
drives greater expectations across the sphere of government through to a
national level.
This evidence will focus on areas where that is already happening, whilst also
looking at some opportunities and threats that exist.
The use of “Big Data”
Councils are the biggest supplier of services to their communities through local
democracy already, however, with information being held at different levels
through interaction with these services there must be more that we can do with
the data we have at our disposal. Our Customer First and myjobscotland shared
services will hold further personal information that after anonymisation could
be used to determine demand for certain services in different areas, even down
to age and socio-economic groups which could define clear insights into how the
variation of services could be applied even down to macro environments.
We therefore need to look at how we deliver the data sets we own under the
Open Government License Framework – work that is already being provided
through the TellMeScotland Public Notices website.
This should mean that when new-shared services are built, data outputs should
be a default item of the specification, and the transition to this model should be
based on local needs and demand:
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All data created by as part of its statutory duty should be open by default
(unless restrictions apply);
Data supplied should be understandable, and available in a variety of
formats;
Smaller sets of data that are more relevant in a local setting should also be
published allowing linkages into the bigger sets
The best example of this in practice comes from Texas1 where data for over one
million police emergency calls were used to re-draw beat boundaries into
smaller areas to tackle hot spots. This was then further used to predict where
and when certain types of crime would occur, which in some instances meant
officers being on hand before the crime was committed.
Social Media
When Twitter first launched back in 2006, no one could have foreseen the
impact it would have on our lives within just seven years. The number of active
Twitter users in the UK has risen by over 1.3 million to a total of 10 million in
2013, and by the end of this year that will account for 20% of all UK Internet
users.
The opportunities to use it as broadcast medium have also become more refined;
so it is no surprise that in their quest for a more transparent Local Government
that anything Councils do to engage and inform their electorate on Twitter
should be wholly embraced.
Therefore, it is with disbelief that we hear of Twitter being banned at some
Council meetings – whilst the reasons aren’t fully stipulated it can be understood
if it detracts from the meeting itself, the meetings themselves are closed or the
contents of the meeting are private, but this is against a backdrop of an
increasing number of Councils webcasting their meetings.
Indeed, the UK Government has already issued guidance to English Councils, but
as with “Big Data” this should be the first position we embrace, as it will provide
a more fulsome and a more cohesive narrative over a longer period.
All Scottish Councils on Twitter this year were verified as accounts – which are
shown as a blue badge on their account. This shows that they are authenticated
and that it is an account representing the organisation. We’re already using that
trust in a variety of ways, such as spreading news of school closures in bad
weather, but they also need to be embraced as a new wave of communication
supporting citizens in accessing services. For example, at myjobscotland we use
Facebook and Twitter to address queries that service users have, as it’s a public
medium so any solutions discussed may be of indirect help to others, whilst
driving improvements in the service too.
http://www.informationweek.com/software/information-management/big-data-plus-policework-good-partners/d/d-id/1105482?
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Other uses of Social Media
The above instances only relate to Twitter but the same theory can be adopted
across all types of Social Media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest), however the
right tool needs to be used to address the right audience. Where there is a
groundswell of public opinion on a burning topic, harnessing these networks
could prove a powerful way in crowdsourcing ideas.
This is by no means a new idea but an expansion of an idea, rewind to Iceland in
2011 where a national forum of 1,000 attendees chosen by lottery came together
2 to outline what they thought their priorities should be in terms of the new
constitutional process. Whilst this part of the process was a success, the nonbinding nature of the constitutional draft created meant that politicians could
ultimately ignore it or re-write it, which they effectively have.
Another example of local democracy in action comes in the form of the LocalGov
Digital Steering Group3 who through its “Local Democracy Bytes” initiative, is
seeking to build a community of councilors, officers, and people in the private
and voluntary sector who want, “..digital to be make a difference to their local
democracy”. It will be interesting to follow their developments over the coming
months.
The importance of engagement
Social Media is nothing without engagement, and if a recent survey is to be
believed then this will need to be addressed soon so as to engage with a new
generation of electorate.
An article on governmentcomputing.com at the start of December 2013 showed
that a survey of 1,000 children between 13 and 17 EXPECT to engage with
government services online when the finish school. What’s more interesting
however, is the fact that they wouldn’t mind if their information was shared with
other public sector organisations if it was used to improve other services.
In local government we have the advantage that it is us who have the
responsibility of educating our children, why are we not using this to educate
them in areas of local politics to include this as part of their social learning and
responsibility? We may then learn some innovative ways of addressing these
through digital media initiatives.
2
http://studiotendra.com/2013/03/29/icelands-crowd-sourced-constitution-is-dead/
3
http://sites.idea.gov.uk/localgovdigital/2013/12/09/rewiring-local-democracy/
Webcasting
The City of Edinburgh Council is currently piloting this for a year at full Council
meetings4 making them available to view live on tablets and smartphones, and
also for a period of 30 days after the meeting. In scenarios such as these, there is
less need to tweet information directly from the meeting leaving Councillors to
focus on the issues, although debate is encouraged using the hashtag
#edinwebcast.
The Welsh Government on the other hand has expanded this further where
Councillors have been equipped to attend these meetings remotely, and in a
country like Scotland where a lot of travel has to happen to attend Council
meetings then this is an area we should be looking at addressing too.
The threats
There are a couple of threats to all of these – the first being the new PSN (Public
Services Network) security rules that are beginning to hamstring all innovation
in our development of digital public services.
Many of our Councils have already felt the brunt of these draconian measures
which have resulted in some Councils having to abandon flexible working
strategies and BYOD (“bring your own devices”) schemes, many of which are
being implemented to reduce costs and improve efficiencies in the first place.
Assuming sense does prevail, and these draconian changes are rolled-back, there
is an opportunity for local and national government to develop the PSN together
and underpin the role it will play in enabling efficient and integrated government
which are the key foundations for the future of public services.
The final one is our IT departments.
There are so many useful services that public sector workers in Scotland cannot
access, despite using them privately. The CEO of Evernote5, Phil Libin is an
advocate of treating his employees well, and it may be surprising to learn there
are no real costs involved, other than a democratisation of the IT we use. And
much of that is in our pockets already.
Libin said that to keep our employees happy give them the freedom to use the
software they currently use and like which will in all likelihood mirror the larger
communities they serve. This obviously flies in the face of the stereotypical IT
4http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/772/councillors_and_democracy/1821/webcasting_of_cou
ncil_meetings
Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A "note" can
be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a
handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders,
then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook.
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department, which takes a top-down approach, forbidding any unapproved
gadget or application. Therefore, so this is a big issue that needs to be resolved
at a higher level with SOCITM so a consistent approach across all councils is
adopted.
Conclusion
We shouldn’t fear using free services especially where we can see their value, we
should be educating citizens / individuals on how to use them correctly and not
just apply blanket bans. To follow that kind of strategy is to the detriment of how
we as organisations communicate effectively. The first casualty of that is often
transparency and that’s something we can’t lose internally.
The biggest criticism that is placed at our door is the lack of transparency, of not
knowing of decisions until they happen, or not knowing how to have a say in
formulation of these decisions. If transparency is at the heart of local democracy,
then shouldn’t digital media be also at the heart of a new local government when
building services?