Implementing transparency

April 29, 2012

Hot on the heels of the post by Andrea di Maio comes a UK National Audit Office (NAO) report entitled ‘Implementing Transparency’ (PDF, 44 pages 0.8 Mb). Given the recent OGP meeting in Brasilia mentioned by Andrea and attended by the UK government and the post “What is ‘open government’“, the report makes interesting reading, since the criticisms are largely replicated in the report.

Typically it picks out that only in 7% of cases is the UK data presented using open standards from World Wide Web consortium, to enable linking e.g. rdf, whilst the largest chunk uses CSV. Two important comments are:

“2.14 The Cabinet Office did not engage with the public to establish demand for the standard data releases outlined in the Prime Minister’s letters, but did consult with developers and industry to identify the additional releases announced in the Autumn Statement 20116 (see paragraph 4.1).

2.15 None of the departments reported significant spontaneous public demand for the standard dataset releases.”

But we then get onto cost-benefit analysis, where the report states that:

“2.21 Although the Government has wide-ranging objectives for transparency, few attempts have yet been made to monitor emerging benefits.”

Local government is not ignored either and a part of the report commencing on page 26 covers what the NAO have discovered from their research of council websites, and there appear to be a number of gaps, although work on LG Inform is expected to help fill some of them, although with 750 metrics to be filled in when it’s planned to go live in September 2012, I don’t imagine everyone who has to supply the data will be so delighted.

In conclusion, I think government needs to look seriously at the report and attempt to answer the questions posed. As occurred with e-government we don’t want excessive sums of money and a great deal of effort wasted chasing something that is not going to benefit the public. I know the claim was used for e-government that it provided traction but we apparently no longer have the cash for further indulgences.

4 Comments | e-government, engagement, transformational change | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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Democratic demands

April 22, 2012

In a thoroughly researched paper from the Journal of Communication, April 2012, Vol 2, Issue 62, pages 249 – 265  ”Internet Use and Democratic Demands: A Multinational, Multilevel Model of Internet Use and Citizen Attitudes About Democracy” by Erik C. Nisbet, Elizabeth Stoycheff and Katy E.Pearce, a number of the questions arising from the debate with those advocating the Internet as a tool for democratic change start to be answered. In fact the whole issue of the Journal is dedicated to social media and political change.

The brief Introduction to the edition by Philip N. Howard & Malcolm R. Perks on pages 359-362 notes, among other things that “the contributors [...] make clear, popular and academic punditry about the “Facebook Revolution” overlooks the deeper and ultimately more important processes at work. There is a connection between technology diffusion, the use of digital media, and political change. But it is complex and contingent.” They later confirm that “we should not therefore assume that social media are automatically democratizing or that the political discussion they engender is necessarily in line with idealized conceptions of civic discourse”.

Importantly, the paper by Nisbet et al summarises in the conclusion that the “study demonstrates the relationship between the Internet and citizen attitudes about democracy may be more nuanced than previous research has suggested and somewhat contingent upon the technological and political context in which citizens are embedded”.  So while we watch this bandwagon roll, lets not jump on it without the correct contextual evidence.

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Civic engagement

April 19, 2012

A recent paper from the USA by Karen Mossberger and Yonghong Wi “Civic Engagement and Local E-Government: Social Networking Comes of Age” possibly asks as many questions as it answers, particularly when compared with a paper from 2011 by Haller, Li & Mossberger entitled “Does E-Government Use Contribute to Citizen Engagement with Government and Community?“

In the 2012 paper no change was seen in the use of US local government web sites for citizen participation and whilst there wasn’t much discussion, it was hoped social networks might create opportunities. The paper then asks a number of questions as to what discussions are occurring, their content and the impact upon policy. The final paragraph on page 15 is clear that:”two-way interaction will require time and management by city employees. Citizens expect a response to arguments and ideas they put forward. Some local governments fear issues of censorship regarding incivility online from citizens, as well as possible consequences of casual, unauthorized comments from government employees or elected officials.” In the UK context I think we’ve been through all that and got over it, although the constructive dialogue and need for responses are still a matter to be developed, as I recently discussed in CONsultation.

The 2011 paper, having noted some outcomes stated in the conclusion on page 27 that ” it may be that those who already most interested and informed are most likely to use digital government to support their civic engagement”, which I think was a conclusion from experiences in Canada. There was also a ‘conclusion’ that “the information capacity of e-government may indeed be affecting the possibilities for government interaction with citizens and other forms of citizen engagement” – the italics being mine, as I question whether it is or not?

Leave a Comment » | citizen, customer satisfaction, e-government, engagement | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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Channel choice

April 17, 2012

A recent paper in the Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) by Christopher C. Reddick & Michael Turner is appropriate to the UK debate. The paper is entitled ” Channel choice and public service delivery in Canada: Comparing e-government to traditional service delivery” and it looks at some of the excellent work done in recording citizen satisfaction and other metrics in a range of Canadian jurisdictions. I’m a little confused by the definition of e-government since they state on page 9 “Through a survey of citizens across Canada there was evidence that e-government has really taken hold as the dominant contact channel, with 55% of Canadian residents surveyed used the Web or email to contact government for a service or information, which rivals the phone at 51%”, which is confusing with the inclusion of email, which is little better than quick ‘white mail’. However, it then goes on to state that “the data indicates that citizens actually received the most satisfaction by receiving a service or information in a government office”, which is probably the same in the UK.

Interestingly, it then goes on to state “There appears to be a digital divide in access to e-government in Canada and it is centered on age and gender, but its cause may not be attributable to simply differences in access. The digital divide can be mitigated if there is greater citizen satisfaction with e-government”, which I can’t disagree with, although the divide in gender terms is nominally marginal in the UK.  A further conclusion is that “governments should realize that citizens use many contact channels, and often several in a single interaction or transaction with government, with some of them being better suited for certain tasks than others. However, governments should realize that citizens receive less satisfaction with the phone [and that] they must find better ways to integrate contact channels as one method to move e-government forward, ensuring that the information received through use of different channels is consistent and service responses are of equivalent quality. Then, where citizens have multiple choices to contact government, they can use the channel that best suits their needs”.

Once all the channels are being measured for satisfaction and re-tuned as a result, there will be, as stated, ”a positive view of all contact channels [which] leads to a positive overall view of public services, so governments will need to continue focusing on service channel improvement to improve overall views of public service – the very model I have been promoting for some years. However, as a warning to some of those pre-occupied with benchmarking services the report concludes “collecting aggregate survey data is limited because of its inability to discern nuances in the data which can better be teased out with more direct methods of observing citizen behavior”, so be warned!

Leave a Comment » | citizen, customer satisfaction, e-government, engagement, Metrics | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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Comment on this post

April 15, 2012

A paper recently published in the International Journal of Managing Information Technology (IJMIT) February 2012, Volume 4, No 1 by Xuequn Wang of Washington State University, USA and Yanjun Yu of Southern University at New Orleans, USA proposes that there are a number of different types of participants in online communities.

The participants are analysed by contribution or otherwise and accordingly labelled – Outsider, Non-interested knower, Trouble maker, Lurker, Non-contributing Participants, Partial-contributing Participant, Contributor. Whilst this is of particular interest to me having used online communities as research tools and being inherently aware of differing behaviours, this may be highly appropriate in the realm of e-participation.

My constant criticism of e-participation is that it doesn’t take into account this varying behaviour that doesn’t replicate anything in the real world. People behave differently and unpredictably when dealing with machines. The authors of the paper takes a view on this stating on page 10 that “Before online communities even encourage individuals to actively participate, these individuals need to know the online communities. Therefore one interesting question can be “What initiatives can help online communities be known by more individuals”.” I suggest this is a lesser issue and that anything can be promoted by raising awareness in a range of other communities, what needs to be done is to design and manage the resource to encourage open and honest participation, which has to be done before the community is established, then it can be promoted.

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