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5:37
Andrew Mitchell telling us how great Birmingham is, and how the Tories enjoy coming here, and how thriving a blogging community we have. Creep

5:37
Last time they came the Tories had a lovely reception from the people of Birmingham. That’s partly why I moved here too.

5:39
“If we don’t dictate things the market will” (Andrew Mitchell, paraphrased; a lot)

5:40
Birmingham’s coalition council has been good for democracy apparently, and is a good model.

5:41
“The whole concept of the Big Society … is an answer to the self-evident fact that the state can’t do everything” – Andrew Mitchell

5:42
“There is such a thing as society, it’s just not the same as the state” (Andrew Mitchell). Hmm… :-/

5:42
Baroness Warsi will be joining us later, apparently.

5:44
“There is a strong opportunity to change the way our civic activity works…” (Nick Booth, worrying that we’re retreating from that).

5:46
“The trick is not just to put everything in the public domain, but to put it there in a way that’s accessible” – Andrew Mitchell

5:47
“Is there any tension between Cllr Whitby and David Cameron” re elected Mayors? (Simon Gray). No, according to Andrew Mitchell.

5:48
Is AM ‘Minister for Birmingham’ or not? Question now being asked.

5:49
Difficult having a regional minister, because there are so many regional interests. – Andrew Mitchell

5:50
Rather than rushing in, we’re going to think about it. (Andrew Mitchell re regional ministers and mayors, etc)

5:50
Having trouble hearing…

5:51
Sorry if this reads a bit randomly, I’m also having trouble focussing.

5:52
Alison Smith: what are the Conservatives’ digital priorities?

5:53
“People who have disabilities … should not be impeded in any way by any changes that we may make” – Andrew Mitchell

5:55
Digital content (eg streaming) tends not to be accessible. If disabled people are expected to engage with politics accessibility needs to be better. (I think that was the gist of what Alison was saying.)

5:56
Nicky Getgood: what can you do to help people do interesting things with local, redundant spaces?

5:58
“In the past the balance of power has rested far too much with developers and not the local people” … areas surrounding people’s homes has been too much in the hands of developers, who hold neighbourhoods to ransom in that respect. AM

5:59
Oh hear we go, he’s slagging of John Prescott. Yawn.

5:59
‘Here’ we go, I mean. Sorry.

6:01
“Any smaller plans [for Sutton Coldfield development] now that the larger ones have been put to one side?” – Najm Clayton

6:02
Apparently they’ve asked lots of people and have a ‘permissive’ blueprint; engine is economic investment and growth, so until then… erm, no. I think.

6:03
But he’s doing everything he can to make Sutton Coldfield attractive.

6:03
And he’s off. Many thanks to Andrew Mitchell for his time, that was quite interesting.

6:05
Some centre-right policy wonk is handing out business cards. They’re blue.

6:11
Baroness Warsi has arrived.

6:18
Had a quick and interesting discussion with Baroness Warsi on why social media is worth taking notice of. Many of us wouldn’t be in this room now if it wasn’t for Twitter. Interestingly her Question Time non-appearance was due to an eye infection, and that if it wasn’t for social media-ites people would still be unaware of that. So she’s not completely dismissive.

6:20
Alex Hughes has been drawing cartoons. Hopefully I’ll be able to link to some later.

6:25
Sam Coates (their ‘digital’ man) says the point was simply to get ministers to meet alternative media publishers. In which case I applaud them.

6:25
And now I go, because I’m running low on battery.

6:41
I’m back briefly to give you Alex Hughes’ artistic interpretation of the meeting: http://bit.ly/cMdeab

6:41
Erm, don’t follow that link. Apparently it’s a zip file. Hang on…

6:47
…Here it is: http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/564489/2/Drawnalism/ConConf2010?h=4bb671

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  No related posts.

I only organised three and still haven’t managed to blog about two of them yet. Still, they were good: Simon Whitehouse talked about ‘Policy options for geographic information from Ordnance Survey‘ and Ordnance Survey OpenData, I looked at the Hansard Society’s recent report ‘Digital citizens and democratic engagement‘ and Stuart Harrison discussed SOCITIM’s ‘Better Connected 2010′ report on council websites.

So would you like me to organise another set of these? There’s been a suggestion that we look at Digital Britain, although it’s more relevant now to discuss it in the context of the new, controversial Digital Economy Act. We could also look at the digital engagement policies of whoever’s in power after the election.

If I do do more of these I will want to stick firmly to the theme of digital civic engagement, but I’m happy for them to be more focussed on public policy if that’s where people want them to go.

Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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My MP is standing down, so I used TheyWorkForYou to see how her successor had voted on particular issues in Parliament. I didn’t like what I saw, so I used YourNextMP to contact the other potential candidate who I might be willing to vote for.

The message ran:

I’m as yet undecided who to vote for in the General Election. I would therefore very much like to know how you would have voted on the following issues:

[list of issues that have been debated in Parliament and that I'm interested in]

A simple ‘for’, ‘against’ or ‘abstain’ will do, but please give your personal view and not simply the party line.

Twenty minutes later I had an email with those issues listed and, next to each one, his voting preference.

I was very impressed. And I liked what I saw. And if he wins the seat I shall keep an eye on him using TheyWorkForYou, The Public Whip and YourNextMP.

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I hadn’t had time to plan properly (and still haven’t got around to blogging about Simon’s Ordnance Survey OpenData presentation from last week) but we still managed to have a long and interesting discussion.

The report, published in February, looked at two sample groups:

• 2,003 individuals who are already online
  (This data was from the end of 2008: a lot has changed since then)
• 58 ‘digital leaders’ (individuals with a strong interest in social media and politics)
  (This data was from 2009, and sourced via Twitter; I suspect the people surveyed are already operating within the same networks as each other)

Key points from the report’s Conclusion include:

• For those already online, the internet makes it easier to take part in democracy;
• What [the digital leaders] group is doing today, we can expect to see migrate across to the wider online public tomorrow;
• Citizens do not want the passive, broadcast-only relationship with their MPs that has existed until now, they wish to communicate and engage, to track and contribute to the democratic debate;
• Higher levels of engagement and wider participation in the democratic process will happen when citizens feel that they are a central part of it.

The discussion raised concern about the basis for some of the conclusions, which seemed to be presumptions rather than borne from the research.

For example, where was the evidence that what the enthusiasts are doing today will be taken up by the wider online public? (I have since put this to Andy Williamson, the report’s author, who says in a Twitter message that it was ‘based on models of tech adoption theory’.)

Recommendations

The report makes a number of recommendations:

For Parliament

• Wherever systems are being updated:
  • implement open data standards;
  • ensure that public-facing APIs are made available for publicly accessible data; and
  • ensure data is freely available and not restricted by copyright or other restrictive forms of licensing.
• Continue to develop multiple social media and other delivery platforms in recognition that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ platform or tool and that the public increasingly expects data to be pushed to the services they use, not pulled from a central website or repository.
• Ensure that opportunities are taken for digital media to be used as tools for transparency, outreach and public engagement and not simply for broadcast.
• Review the resourcing requirements for effective social media use amongst Members.
• Ensure that there is timely and appropriate training available and clear guidelines on social media usage.

For MPs

• MPs must listen and respond as well as publish. Citizens want to engage in dialogue about the issues that concern them so communication with them has to be two-way.
• Social media allows MPs to keep a closer eye on the issues that are important for their constituents, these are vital tools in the rich democratic milieu and all MPs should be using them.

For citizens

• Demand two-way digital interaction with your MP and insist that they communicate digitally and proactively.
• Use email, websites and social media to draw MPs’ attention to important issues and use the power of social media to insist that MPs come to the debate on citizen’s terms.

Many of these sentiments are not new, and will certainly be familiar to anyone in the ‘digital leaders’ demographic as they probably helped arrive at them.

Therefore what interests me is whether the recommendations of this report are having any impact on policy makers. Andy Williamson tells me the reaction has been very positive, and that the report helps strengthen the case for more engagement that is being made by those in parliament who are very keen on it.

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We heard that whereas it used to be the case (in broadcast journalism at least) that each political party had to be given exactly the same coverage, that is no longer the case. If a party has no history of election success, you are quite at liberty not to cover them. Just make sure to list all the candidates who are standing.

It was also agreed that independent reporters should have no extra restrictions for reporting on polling day, although it might be worth trying to get press accreditation.

‘Declaration of Financial Interest’: guideline is apparently now for MPs to make that public, so you can ask if they will give you the same statement that they give to others: they might well see it as in their interest to, particularly in light of the MPs’ expenses scandal.

Useful tools

• TheStraightChoice: uploaded election leaflets
  1. Get your readers to upload theirs
  2. Show them interesting stuff that happened as a result
• ElectionChampion: a game to find the election billboards that are springing up around the country
• Democracy Club: ‘working to build the definitive guide to where all candidates stand on major issues, nationwide’.
• yournextmp.com
  • The goal is that after the election what the winners said will be compared with their voting record over the next five years.
• OopenlyLocal is/will be offering a pingback thingy (I didn’t hear properly) for bloggers to link to posts about local councillors.

Please remember

This is a report of information from other people at a conference. Therefore I may unintentionally have misunderstood or misrepresented what I heard. Please do not treat anything here as fact: check with a reliable source before, say, putting yourself in danger of defending a libel case.

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It’s not the easiest report to make sense of: I would have liked fewer paragraphs full of percentages and more helpful and meaningful presentations of their findings. But it’s interesting, and I will try to unpack some of it by Monday.

The discussion is being held in Moseley Exchange at 6.30pm on Monday (19 April). It’s free to Moseley Exchange members and £3 on the door to non-members.

Anyone is welcome. If you intend to join us please take a moment to register on our Eventbrite page.

Update

The report’s author, Andy Williamson, has very kindly agreed to be online to answer questions.

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I for one am put off voting at all, let alone for the ‘least bad’ party. But what do you think? Let me know with this poll:

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The research was undertaken last week by online pollsters YouGov, on behalf of the Citizenship Foundation. Almost 4,000 young people between 14 and 25 took part in the survey.

In answer to the question ‘How much, if at all, do you trust the following to tell the truth?’, journalists fared poorly. The scores for ‘little to no trust’ make worrying reading:

Or do they? Is it in fact reassuring that The Sun isn’t trusted by its vast readership, or that newspapers don’t necessarily hold as much sway over the public as maybe we believe?

Further information

• Survey results summary (pdf)
• Full survey results (pdf)

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A recent YouGov poll for the Citizenship Foundation interviewed almost 4,000 14-25 year-olds about their attitudes to political participation, politicians and power in the United Kingdom.

• The majority of respondents said they would be likely to vote, with 59 per cent seeing voting as the most useful way of participating in local or national politics.
• 32 per cent said they were knowledgeable about “the way that local and national government works”; of those, 71 per cent said the internet was a source of their news.
• 85 per cent had never joined a campaigning group in their local community (fairly consistent across the age ranges), and 50 per cent thought doing so would make no difference to the issues the tackle (also fairly consistent).
• 51 per cent had never joined a campaigning group on a social networking site, but 42 per cent had; however 65 per cent thought doing so would make no difference.
• 54 per cent said they would be more likely to vote if they could do so online.
• Email was seen as the most effective tool for making a political difference online. This doubles at the top end of the age bracket. Twitter scores very low and only increases fractionally with older respondents; although interestingly there is a significant spike among 16 year-olds (almost treble the score of younger age groups).

Further information

This post was originally published on the Citizenship Foundation Webmaster blog. The research was commissioned to mark the Citizenship Foundation’s 20th year.

• Press releases
• Download the survey results summary (pdf)
• Download the full survey results (pdf)

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