Glimpsing Forward

Earlier today, David Cameron and Nick Clegg unveiled their joint plans for government, which they say will  create the “radical” change the UK needs.

The joint Programme for Government attempts to combine the best of both Conservative and Liberal Democrat election manifestos.

The coalition partners said it represents a programme for five years of partnership government driven by the values freedom, fairness and responsibility:

“We believe that it can deliver radical, reforming government, a stronger society, a smaller state, and power and responsibility in the hands of every citizen. Great change and real progress lie ahead”

Coalition Programme

Transparency

The coalition agreement devotes a whole section to government transparency. It says how important it is for government to open the doors of public bodies to ensure they are held accountable for their actions and spending. The importance of setting government data free is also recognised as a catalyst towards “enabling businesses and non-profit organisations to build innovative applications and websites”.

The coalition pledges are taken primarily from the Conservative party manifesto, but it also includes election promises from the Liberal Democrats. The pledges include

• We will require public bodies to publish online the job titles of every member of staff and the salaries and expenses of senior officials paid more than the lowest salary permissible in Pay Band 1 of the Senior Civil Service pay scale, and organograms that include all positions in those bodies. – Conservative manifesto pledge
• We will require anyone paid more than the Prime Minister in the centrally funded public sector to have their salary signed off by the Treasury. – Conservative manifesto pledge
• We will regulate lobbying through introducing a statutory register of lobbyists and ensuring greater transparency. – Lib Dem manifesto pledge
• We will also pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics. – Lib Dem manifesto pledge (although not capped at £10,000 as in their manifesto)
• We will strengthen the powers of Select Committees to scrutinise major public appointments. – Conservative manifesto pledge
• We will introduce new protections for whistleblowers in the public sector. – Conservative election pledge
• We will take steps to open up government procurement and reduce costs; and we will publish government ICT contracts online. – Conservative manifesto pledge
  
• We will create a level playing field for open- source software and will enable large ICT projects to be split into smaller components. – Conservative manifesto pledge (“Better” IT procurement though utilising open-source software was also a Lib Dem pledge)
• We will require full, online disclosure of all central government spending and contracts over £25,000. – Conservative manifesto pledge
• We will create a new ‘right to data’ so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public, and then published on a regular basis. – Conservative manifesto pledge
• We will require all councils to publish meeting minutes and local service and performance data. – While not explicitly stated in the Conservative manifesto, it in the spirit of their overall aim to ensuring ‘people have a right to government data thus making the performance of the state more transparent.’
• We will require all councils to publish items of spending above £500, and to publish contracts and tender documents in full. – Conservative manifesto pledge
• We will ensure that all data published by public bodies is published in an open and standardised format, so that it can be used easily and with minimal cost by third parties. – Conservative manifesto pledge

“Our political system is broken”

Along with the pledges on transparency the government also commits to “fundamental political reform”. This was a key Liberal Democrat demand, and the statement below seems highly influenced by their perspective of the UK electoral system. While they won almost a quarter of the overall vote, that earned them only 9 percent of the seats in Parliament:

The Government believes that our political system is broken. We urgently need fundamental political reform, including a referendum on electoral reform, much greater co-operation across party lines, and changes to our political system to make it far more transparent and accountable.

There are many other pledges on political reform, but one of the most participatory in terms of civic engagement is the the plan to ‘introduce a new ‘public reading stage’ for bills. This is intended to give the public an opportunity to comment on proposed legislation online. Along with this there will be a dedicated ‘public reading day’ within a bill’s committee stage where those comments will be debated by the committee scrutinising the bill.”

This was a Conservative election pledge to try to open up the legislative process and improve the scrutiny of proposed legislation, while still retaining the fundamental character of our representative democracy.

The next government looks set to vastly expand the range of data available on sites such as data.gov.uk, while also expanding the scope of the Freedom of Information Act (another pledge outlined in the coalition agreement). The plans outlined today regarding government transparency and accountability look all set to meet David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s stated ambition to:

distribute power and opportunity to people rather than hoarding authority within government. That way, we can build the free, fair and responsible society we want to see.

For more on today’s Coalition agreement, and for a video of the event check Number 10 news page.

Over 9,000 proposals have been received in the Your Country, Your Call competition, which closed for entries late last month.

The competition sought to “identify and reward two proposals so big that, when implemented, they can help to secure prosperity and jobs for this and future generations”. It was intended to “rekindle our sense of creativity, our capability to take positive action, and thus generate hope and confidence”.

At Dublin’s Ignite 3 event, Padraig McKeon, Director of Drury Communications and a member of the competition’s steering group, explained what they were looking for in a proposal. The focus should be on ‘new models, types of business or service, or new opportunities within existing industries or service areas’. The Irish Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and the co-operative movement were suggested as representing game-changing ideas exemplifying the radical thinking being sought through the competition.

The two winners will get €100,000 each and a development fund of €500,000 to implement their idea.

The competition has received widespread media coverage over the past few months, and has been advertised extensively in the national press, on radio, television and online. It has been featured on national tv – see RTE’s feature below – and has generated much heated debate in blogs and discussion forums.

As mentioned in the television feature above, not all of the debate around the competition has been positive. Criticism has been expressed online and in the national press surrounding aspects of the competition website, terms and conditions and public funding of the initiative.

Website Controversy

The domain itself (yourcountryyourcall.com) was registered by Allied Irish Bank (one of the largest banks in the country). Padraig McKeon, a member of the competition’s steering group, states in the interview below that this was purely for administrative purposes. Nevertheless, it does seem strange that a financial institution would be registrar of the competition and so closely linked to its inception. Many people feel it ironic the bank would be supporting a competition aimed at economic recovery, when it is so closely associated with the Irish economic collapse, and has had itself to be recapitalised by the government.

Also, Cisco’s involvement in the competition has been questioned. The website was provided free of charge from Cisco and appears to be hosted on their servers – see http://www.cisco.com/web/IRE/yourcountryyourcall/index.html. As the site –  and the Brightidea platform – were provided as a gift, McKeon admits they were constrained by the technology and infrastructure made available to them. ‘The website was provided to us for free by Cisco’ he says, adding that if they had designed the technology themselves they would have done many things differently.

Competition Terms and Conditions

There have also been issues over the apparently contradictory claims relating to Intellectual Property (IP) in the competition’s Terms and Conditions. Who eventually owns the IP of all ideas submitted is unclear. While questions relating to this have been answered by Mr McKeon, it does leave suspicion around the status of ideas put forward on the platform and the involvement of those running the initiative i.e. An Smaoineamh Mór, the company behind the initiative .

Competition funding

What is striking from the interview above is the number of people involved in the project. McKeon mentions (4.12 – 5:28) there are about 60 people working on the project, primarily in the communications area. These range from people involved in advertising, media, television production and social media.

Given the large numbers of people involved in the running of the competition it’s not surprising that the costs are upwards of €2m. Estimates suggest the entire project would have cost €5m if organisers and advertisers hadn’t waived fees (organisers  insist all advertising has been given free).

Simon McGarr and others have raised questions regarding how the funding for the competition has been raised. In response, Padraig McKeon – outlined some of the funding sources for An Smaoineamh Mór Ltd, which is the company running the competition.

A cash fund of just under €2m has been accumulated via donations from 13 parties (companies and individuals) which has been lodged in the accounts of the company, An Smaoineamh Mór, which is a registered charity…

There is no government or political involvement in either setting up or operating the competition. However YCYC is not merely ’suggesting’ it has Government support. The project explicitly has that support. Specifically, the promoters formally presented the project to government late last summer and asked for support in three ways – a contribution to the fund referred above, a request that the competition would have access if it needed it to the services of the state enterprise agencies in the evaluation process (if such help were required) and a commitment that government would engage with the process of developing the two winning proposals, particularly with reference to any legislative issues that might need to be addressed.

It agreed to all three requests – it will be contributing 15% of the fund; there has been no requirement to this point for the involvement of the state agencies and clearly there is no need for development support at this point.

These questions over the finances of the competition were outlined in the Irish Times, with a response from the organisation clarifying a couple of important points:

• The Government agreed to contribute €300,000, but has no direct role in running the competition or determining the outcome. (Full details on this are vague as in March the Minister involved suggested her Department was simply examining this proposal)
• An Smaoineamh Mór Ltd will not exploit or commercialise any intellectual property for its own financial benefit, or the benefit of anyone associated with running the competition who is giving their time on a pro bono basis.

Daragh O’Brien, a blogger on Information Management questioned whether this government money would have been better invested in county enterprise boards and campus incubators with a good track record of establishing new companies:

Perhaps a hybrid of the current competition and the existing structures is what we actually need — but YCYC as a stand-alone event strikes me as a potential waste of taxpayers’ money.

Quantity and Quality of ideas

The competition has generated a significant number of proposals, and this week the organisers have started running advertisements in the national press, thanking people for their participation in the competition. The announcement reads:

To the 177,000 visitors, from 176 countries and for the 9,000 plus proposals, we’d just like to say Thank you

Along with these proposals, there were over 11,000 comments and 35,000 votes submitted by over 20,000 registered users. In the last day alone some 1,800 proposals were submitted.

It is now up to the judging committee to filtering these proposals, and come up with a shortlist of feasible ideas by June.

The current crop of proposals contains a mixture of the good, the bad and the bizarre. Genuine game-changing ideas, however, are difficult to find amongst the rash of proposals that state the obvious e.g. we should cycle more, recycle more, encourage entrepreneurship, set up talent banks and promote Ireland as a green, organic country.

There are some genuine brainwaves, but few that provide a direct path towards ‘helping secure prosperity and jobs’. Many proposals are clever, if quirky, such as teaching children Mandarin or removing 1c and 2c coins from the mint. Some of the oddest ideas include:

• Invite diaspora back to Ireland for a massive homecoming
• Become Europe’s Easter Island
• Setup an Irish theme park – Leprechaun Land

One interesting suggestion that got coverage in the national press surrounded the building of a Monorail. The idea came straight out of a Simpsons episode in which Lyle Lanley suggests that the town construct a monorail. To this, Mayor Quimby replies:

Just tell us your idea and we’ll vote for it.

The amusing idea gathered widespread coverage on discussion boards and was humorously declared the best suggestion to date. Unfortunately, the idea has been removed from the Your Country, Your Call site, but this one idea probably got more young people talking about the competition than any other single advertising initiative during the campaign.

While it’s easy to be amused at some of the suggestions, others note that many are not just stupid, but illegal, and sometimes dangerous.

Interestingly, Padraig McKeon, admits that the quality of entries varied depending on whether they are submitted during the day or late at night. “That’s the nature of crowd sourcing,” he said. “But all we really want is to get 20 good ideas that can be whittled down to a final five and, eventually, two winners.”

Roisin Ingle analyzed the top ideas with the most support and asked experts for their views on whether these ideas could work. She also looked at comments from the public as to their appreciation of the feasibility of the ideas. This analysis makes for interesting reading as to the quality and viability of the top rated proposals. Top five by user votes are listed below:

1). IDEA: HELP SAVE THE HSE AND MILLIONS OF LIVES

John Donnelly proposes that low-dose naltrexone (LDN), a drug used in other countries to treat auto-immune-related illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Crohn’s disease and cancer, should be introduced and prescribed at low levels “by every doctor in Ireland”.

This proposals is not supported by the Irish Times expert, however, it’s received nearly 2,000 votes and hundreds of comments. While it maybe worthy of investigation, its not clear how this proposal would generate jobs or prosperity for the country.

2). IDEA: Ireland West 2020 – A Bright Green Future

The Engineering the West team proposed an Ireland West 2020 partnership which, working from a “sustainable framework”, would unlock the potential of the region in terms of natural and human resources.

The expert view – from Eddie O’Connor, chief executive of Mainstream Renewable Power – is that it is a “great idea”. There are many other ideas along a similar vein, but such themes of promoting renewable energy are already government policy and it’s uncertain how the competition funding resources would make a significant impression in this area.

3). IDEA: Work for Welfare payments

TP2010 proposes to force those in receipt of certain social welfare payments to work in under-resourced areas of government. It’s suggested this would improve workers’ skills and offer an alternative to “becoming depressed sitting at home”.

Brid O’Brien, head of policy with the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed explained how uninformed this idea is: “This idea shows a complete lack of awareness of the work already done by unemployed people within the voluntary and community sector in areas such as community employment schemes”.

Csullie, a commenter on the idea, agrees and says this “Harks back to the days of the workhouse and puts people out of work. Why employ people on a reasonable wage when we can get free slaves from the welfare system.”.

4). IDEA: Steal the UK’s computer games industry

DamienDamien suggests reclassifying developers of computer games as artists and thus exempt them from income tax under current rules.

Dave Gargan, vice-president of engineering with games developer Havok, offers cautious support for the idea but the challenge would be to build critical mass in this area. However, it’s unlikely the government would offer such incentives for one particular industry, over many others.

5). IDEA: An International Healthcare Services Centre (IHSC)

This involves the creation of an International Healthcare Services Centre (IHSC) dealing with exporting healthcare services overseas. The proposer, Joe Dalton, explains how smarter methods of healthcare delivery, such as telehealthcare and independent living systems could help alleviate rising healthcare costs associated with ageing populations and the rise of chronic diseases.

Experts such as Dr Muiris Houston pronounce this as “a brilliant idea,”. The concept is modeled on the Irish Financial Services Centre which was setup in the eighties under legislation designed to boost activity and employment in the Irish economy.

Next steps

Over the coming months, the judging panel will whittle down the entries to 20 semi-finalists and then select five finalists before the winners are announced. The two winning proposals are due to be announced on September 17th.

The judging panel, chaired by former EU Commissioner David Byrne, said it would be looking for ideas that had the potential to transform the economy by creating sustainable jobs and opportunity.

However, no-one is under any illusion that any single idea will have the potential to ‘transform the economy’ or make serious inroads into the country’s serious unemployment crisis. Ireland has the third highest unemployment rate in the OECD, and it’s difficult to see many of the ideas above significantly impacting this.

While it’s easy to criticise many aspects of the competition – and many of the proposals – it has a least generated some enthusiasm and creativity amongst the public for new ideas to get the country ‘back on its feet’.

Earlier today, David Cameron outlined new Conservative plans “for real change in politics”. In a speech entitled “Big ideas to give Britain Real Change”, he described 9 ideas for real change in Politics. Ideas include:

1. No more unelected Prime Ministers
2. Opening up democracy: More postal primaries
3. Expanding the Freedom of Information Act
4. Neighbourhood budgets: giving neighbourhoods direct funding
5. Public drafting: “Crowdsourcing” the drafting of government legislation
6. Opening up parliament: a Public Reading Day
7. Protecting whistleblowers: Strengthening protection on government waste and misuses of public money
8. A new right to data: Right to Data Act
9. Strengthening Select Committees

Of particular interest to those in favour of a more Open Government are the plans for:

Expanding the Freedom of Information Act

The Conservatives plan to expand the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to include taxpayer-funded bodies such as Northern Rock and Network Rail, along with bodies such as the Local Government Association. The idea is to provide the public with access to a wide range of government information previously not freely available.

Public drafting: “Crowdsourcing” the drafting of government legislation

Late last year, the Conservatives announced a competition to create an online platform to through which citizens can post ideas in relation to government policy. The intention was to create a platform through which ‘the collective wisdom of the British people’ could be harnessed to improve draft legislation.

The Conservatives claim “Government legislation is often hastily drafted, leading to unintended consequences in the law.” As such, they plan to

pilot a new ‘crowd-sourcing’ approach to drafting legislation, enabling expert members of the public to play a role. This will help produce better Bills.

This new system of ‘Public Drafting’, will allow members of the public the opportunity to engage with and improve the drafting of legislation. It will have four stages:

• The Department sponsoring the legislation will publish detailed instructions on the policy intentions of the legislation online, as well an explanation of the constraints within which all clauses will have to be drafted.

• People will register for an online forum that allows them to submit draft clauses they believe will achieve the specified policy aims. We expect this to include lawyers, academics and other experts. If needed, contributors will also be able to ask the sponsoring Department questions to clarify the drafting instructions, and these questions and answers will be posted online.

• All public contributions will be open to review, comment and amendment from other registered participants, and participants will be encouraged to rate all submissions.

• At the end of the process, the highest rated drafts will go forward to be considered by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the official government drafters of all legislation. The decision on whether to accept, in whole or in part, any of the top rated drafting suggestions will rest entirely with the Parliamentary Counsel.

They reference Beth Noveck’s book on Wiki Government and the Peer to Patent pilot project as a model on which ‘Public Drafting’ would be based.

Opening up parliament: a Public Reading Day

As part of their aim to “throw open the doors of Parliament” the Conservatives have announced a “Public Reading Stage for legislation” which would take place before a bill goes to Committee stage for deliberation. The idea is to give the public a chance to feed in their comments on proposed legislation which would then be considered by elected officials:

The Public Bill Committee process will include a formal Public Reading Day, when MPs and Lords formally consider and discuss the points submitted by the public. This process will help open up the legislative process and improve the scrutiny of proposed legislation, while still retaining the fundamental character of our representative democracy.

A new right to data: Right to Data Act

The Conservatives propose a “Right to Data Act”  to give members of the public a legally enforceable ‘Right to Data’. This will allow for members to the public to appeal if public bodies refuse requests for data collected by government. They claim this:

radical policy will help transform the culture of the public sector from one that presumes secrecy to one that presumes datasets should be open and shared with the public on an ongoing basis.

The Conservatives look set to expand the reach of data.gov.uk through making more datasets available particularly in relation to government spending. As part of this, they reference the President Obama and how he has promoted transparency in government spending through the establishment of Recovery.gov and the bill enacting USAspending.gov.

People power through electoral reform

Overall it looks like an interesting set of ideas that expand on David Cameron’s ideas on People Power and the Conservative manifesto’s ‘Invitation to join the government’. However, while this agenda establishes a progressive stance towards open government, it does not mention topics such as electoral reform which would enshrine a more fundamental change into British politics. It’s not to say the Conservatives don’t have ideas on this – their manifesto contains pledges on petitions to secure debates in Parliament and reform of the House of Lords – it’s just that fundamental people power i.e. through the power of the vote, is not adequately addressed.

According to yesterday’s BBC poll of polls: Liberal Democrats with 30% of the vote will get 102 seats, Conservatives with 33% get 258 seats, while Labour coming in third with 27% will emerge as the victor with 261 seats. Will Hutton, of the Work Foundation, summed up the situation:

We want our votes and opinions to count. Yet the majority of us vote in constituencies which are essentially rotten boroughs that will return the same party come what may. Your choice, if not from a winning party, is not to vote or vote tactically. Only in the 100 or so marginals, where Lord Ashcroft has directed his millions, is there a genuine political contest. It is the fast road to voter disengagement.

Analogous to this Polly Toynbee of the Guardian explained ‘we need to change the system to make every single vote count’.

The Liberal Democrats support a change to the voting system through the introduction of proportional representation. They believe this is a much fairer and more equitable system. This is supported by advocacy groups such as Vote for a Change. However, as it’s unlikely the Liberal Democrats will be the largest party at the next election, they are calling for a Hung Parliament as a means of achieving this electoral reform.

The new economics foundation’s Vote Power Index, demonstrates the unequal distribution of electoral power under the current UK voting system. The index calculates the value of a vote in a constituency based on the number of votes and the chances of the seat changing hands.

Stephen Whitehead explained the two startling findings of the index:

Firstly, it shows the staggering inefficiency of our system in translating votes into outcomes. Thanks to the vast number of votes that are effectively wasted, almost three quarters of voting power is squandered.

Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, the index highlights the chronic injustice of our system. In the UK the luckiest fifth of voters have more than 33 times more power than the unluckiest fifth. This is a far more uneven distribution than household income in the UK.

This index highlights the need to change Britain’s electoral system to establish a voting regime that recognises the importance and significant of each vote, and ensures the majority opinion of people throughout the country is reflected in the Houses of Parliament.

Now that really would be a big idea.

Further reading

• Vote for a Change
• Electoral Reform Society
• Electoral dysfunction: Why democracy is always unfair

Earlier today, the World Bank announced it was opening up its development data to the public and “challenging the global community to use the data to create new applications and solutions to help poor people in the developing world”.

It launched a new website offering free access to more than 2,000 financial, business, health, economic and human development statistics that had previously only been available to paid subscribers.

The data being made freely available includes information from World Development Indicators reports, which track up to 1,000 stats related to global development, including the Global Development Finance report, Africa Development Indicators, Global Economic Monitor and other agency reports.

Speaking about the Bank’s new open data initiative World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick said:

It’s important to make the data and knowledge of the World Bank available to everyone. Statistics tell the story of people in developing and emerging countries and can play an important part in helping to overcome poverty.

Our experience shows, what gets measured can be changed. That is why it is so important to make this available to everyone.

Broader access [to this data] will allow policy makers and advocacy groups to provide better informed solutions to development challenges and measure improvements more accurately.

The release of this data is seen as an important step in of ensuring transparency and accountability throughout the development process:

The World Bank recognizes that transparency and accountability are essential to the development process and central to achieving the Bank’s mission to alleviate poverty.

[…] Broader access to these data allow policymakers and advocacy groups to make better-informed decisions and measure improvements more accurately. They are also valuable tools to support research by journalists, academia and others, broadening understanding of global issues.

The initiative is recognized as ‘highly significant’ due to the worldwide importance and reach of the data. It can also act as a catalyst for others to engage with the development process:

Opening up the data set to public access hinges on the understanding that together we know more and can do more. It also encourages engaged and talented people everywhere to dig in to the information, look for hidden patterns and previously undetected linkages, so that problems and needs are more likely to be addressed with greater speed and creativity.

Apps for Development

Zoellick also announced the launch of  an “Apps for Development” challenge later this year to give developers around the world incentives to “transform datasets into new applications to help tackle existing development challenges, such as infant mortality , literacy and extreme poverty.”

Speaking about the initiative Hans Rosling, Gapminder Foundation co-founder, said:

It’s the right thing to do, because it will foster innovation. That is the most important thing.

He tweeted about how the “World became better today!”, and hoped the initiative would inspire more tools for visualizing data and set an example for other international institutions.

Open Data

With this new initiative the World Bank is joining a growing “open data” trend; both the United States and United Kingdom have recently opened up large amounts of government data to the public.

The UN’s 2010 E-Government Survey noted the economics and importance of Open Data:

Open data enhances public sector efficiency by transferring some of the analytical demands of government to NGOs, research institutes and the media, which have been found to combine data from various sources in original and inventive ways.

Similarly, governments around the world have used competitions as a means of efficiently engaging with the public to produce innovative applications for the public good, that may not otherwise have been developed internally.

The “Apps for Development” contest also follows in a long line of government related open data development competitions.

The data.worldbank.org site is powered by Drupal, which is fast becoming the new ‘Gov 2.0 site Builder‘ because of its open nature and strong transparency, accountability, participation and collaboration credentials.

The World Bank’s new Access to Information Policy — which takes later this year — should expand the knowledge and experience shared by the bank, by providing more information about projects and programs than ever before. Along with increasing Participation and Transparency at both a policy and project level, the bank is hoping the release of data will encourage collaboration and engagement with global development issues.

The opening up of data is seen by the bank as a means towards fostering innovation in the development process, and utilizing the results towards furthering it’s mission of fighting global poverty.

UPDATE

Federal News Radio Interview with World Bank corporate communications manager Carl Hanlon on the launch of data.worldbank.org

Gordon Brown’s speech last week on “Building Britain’s Digital Future”, covered a wide range of topics, but focused particularly how digital technologies such as the “semantic web” could drive a radical reshaping of government and its interactions with citizens.

He outlined his ambition for Britain to be the world leader not only in the digital economy, but also:

in public service delivery where we can give the greatest possible voice and choice to citizens, parents patients and consumers; and the world leader in the new politics where that voice for feedback and deliberative decisions can transform the way we make local and national policies and decisions.

Linked data

Mr. Brown explained how the concept of Linked data and the semantic web has ‘the potential to be just as revolutionary as the web’.  He went on to say:

in both the content and delivery of public services the next stage of the web will transform the ability of citizens to tailor the services they need to their requirements, to feedback constantly on their success, to interact with the professionals who deliver them and to put the citizen not the public servant in control.

As part of this, he announced £30m in funding to support the creation of a new institute, the institute of web science – headed by  Sir Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the world wide web) and Professor Nigel Shadbolt (expert in web science) – to realise the social and economic benefits of advances in the web. The idea is to ensure the UK is at the cutting edge of research on the semantic web and other internet technologies.

Digital revolution

Brown outlined three steps to ensure the UK realizes the ambition to become a leader in the next stage of the digital revolution: digitise and improve the digital communications infrastructure; personalise service delivery and government interactions; and harness the power of technology to economise .

• Digitise – Make the UK a leader in the provision of “superfast broadband”.

The prime minister said access to broadband was a fundamental freedom in the modern world, and would save government billions of pounds while at the same time revolutionizing how people access public services.

Superfast broadband is the electricity of the digital age. And I believe it must be for all – not just for some.

[…] Faster broadband speeds will bring new, cheaper, more personalised and more effective public services to people; it will bring games and entertainment options with new levels of sophistication; it will make accessing goods and services immeasurably easier; it will enrich our democracy by giving people new ways of communicating complaining and challenging vested interests.

• Personalise – Seize the opportunities for voice and choice in our public services by opening up data and digital technology to transform the way citizens interact with government.

He announced that from 1st April, ordnance survey information will be made freely available to the public and in the autumn the government will publish online an inventory of all non-personal datasets held by departments and arms-length bodies – a “domesday book” for the 21st century.

[..] we must use this technology to open up data with the aim of providing every citizen in Britain with true ownership and accountability over the services they demand from government.

And in doing so we can put in place the best most personalised but universally accessible digital public services in the world, and harness the power of technology to economise – shaking up Whitehall and making us the most efficient, open and responsive government in the world.

[…] The new domesday book will for the first time allow the public to access in one place information on each set of data including its size, source, format, content, timeliness, cost and quality. And there will be an expectation that departments will release each of these datasets, or account publicly for why they are not doing so.

Any business or individual will be free to embed this public data in their own websites, and to use it in creative ways within their own applications.

Along with opening up data Brown also set out a raft of measures to create personalised web pages for everyone to engage with government services. It’s called Mygov and is seen as a replacement to the first generation of online citizen interaction with government i.e. e-government:

Mygov will constitute a radical new model for how public services will be delivered and for how citizens engage with government – making interaction with government as easy as internet banking or online shopping. This open, personalised platform will allow us to deliver universal services that are also tailored to the needs of each individual; to move from top-down, monolithic websites broadcasting public service information in the hope that the people who need help will find it – to government on demand.

[…] Online, Mygov will give people a simple “dashboard” to manage their pensions, tax credits or child benefits; pay their council tax; fix their doctors or hospital appointment and control their own treatment; apply for the schools of their choice and communicate with their children’s teachers; or get a new passport or driving licence – all available when and where they need it.

[…] This bold new approach will transform the way services are delivered but, more importantly, it will be the vehicle through which citizens will come to control the services that are so important to their lives and communities. With Mygov, citizens will be in control – choosing the content relevant to them and determining their level of engagement.

• Economise – The Pre-Budget Report we set out the government’s determination to find £11 billion of savings by driving up operational efficiency, much of it enabled by the increased transparency and reduced costs made available by new technology.

The prime minister explained how restructuring and reform government departments should provide for major savings on running costs – while providing better services to the citizen. This transformation will be driven through the use of new digital technologies which can enable the change from a “paternalistic, closed Whitehall to an open, interactive responsive enabler where citizens personalise shape and ultimately control their services.”

He explained how the government is  committed to achieving £4bn of savings from back office functions by 2012-13. To drive this forward, the government intends to establish a number of business service companies that will handle the routine back office functions of Whitehall departments. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) as held up as an example of how this could work:

The prototype for this new approach already exists – the shared services centre in the department for work and pensions, which already supports 140,000 staff in three departments and plans to take on four more in the next year. DWP also has plans to establish its shared services as a trading fund within the next twelve months, and will explore in parallel the scope for bringing further commercial expertise into its work.

Deliberative democracy

While the majority of Brown’s speech focused on harnessing new technology to refashion the structures and workings of government, he also envisaged how it could “open the door to a reinvention of the core policy-making processes and towards a renewal of politics itself.”

Digital government can open new ways of enabling people to influence and even decide public policy (check San Francisco’s recent example of such Policy consultations).

[…] Since it was established at the end of 2006, the number 10 e-petitions service has received more than 70 thousand petitions. There have been more than 12 million signatures placed and the Government has replied with more than 8 million e-mail responses.

Each week I record a podcast and use twitter most days. Number10.gov.uk carries out daily conversations with more than 1.7 million followers. There have been almost 2 million views of our images on flickr and 4.3 million views of our films and videos on YouTube.

Perhaps, as a reference to the US government’s recent citizen engagement initiative – as part of the Open Government Directive – he explained how he was inviting people to directly share in the task of government that is there to serve them.

And I am today tasking every department to identify the far wider scope for deliberative engagements with the public, specifiying the outcome expected from such engagement.

It’ll be interesting to see how departments gather together the scope for such an exercise, and whether they go to the same lengths as US government agencies in crowdsourcing ideas.

Future

Gordon Brown has signaled his determination to harness new digital technology to reshape government and create a new generation platform upon which citizens can engage more efficiently. However, with an election expected to be announced next week, it’s unsure whether he will still be in office to see these ideas implemented.

Nevertheless, many aspects of the speech above are also contained in the Conservative’s recent Technology manifesto e.g. the release of more government data, improving broadband speeds and utilising more ‘Open Source’ software to reduce IT costs. Whoever wins the next election it looks like the central tenets of Open Government – transparency, participation, and collaboration – will become more and more integral to the delivery of public services and the efficacy of government departments.

Related

• Building Britain’s Digital Future’ speech with twitter subtitles (H/T @mhawksey)
• Tim Berners-Lee, Nigel Shadbolt and Martha Lane Fox on Twitter