However, although they are not what one would describe as an ICT or e-government policy organization, they have produced some sensible reports around empowering local communities, and thus the application of ICT. A new publication from them “Town halls in a post-bureaucratic* age” by Thomas Neumark continues this trend as a 20 page PDF.

This is not another cry for social media or e-democracy but a rational proposal for public involvement through the representative system. It lists the what successful culture change consists of and warns of the points for failure, and essentially that is it. This is applicable to any change in public service delivery inside or outside government, by electronic means or other.

Ignore these “lessons from practice” at your peril!

* I’ve picked up on the term post-bureaucratic in another recent post!

At 216 pages its another hefty read but one key finding on page 80 is that:

“The links between e-participation and community empowerment are surprisingly weak. Despite a growing interest in electronic forms of participation and, indeed, electronic democracy, the ways in which the wide range of devices actually empower individuals or communities, and the extent to which they have a direct influence on decision making, is often ignored. Although there is a large literature on the topic of e-participation and e-democracy, the actual evidence base on which to understand this topic is quite limited.”

Which I would also argue extends to much of the material on anything with an “e-” in fron to it, hence the reason for my own research and also the reason why I challenge much of the current hype about Web 2.0 and social media. Have a play by all means but don’t expect the other 98% of the population to buy into it!

Depending upon how you view these things it was a good day or bad one, since it also coincided with the new White Paper from the DCLG (157 pages {PDF, 1809 Kb), which also has things to say about civic engagement, making information available and other matters.

Importantly for this research, the first document states on page 13 that ‘we are exploiting and approach that will help us to…design services that reflect the needs of customers not arbitrary targets or performance measures.’ Which rather amuses me when we are actually talking about an indicator apparently designed to measure ‘failure demand’ but rebranded for Ministerial purposes to avoid the word ‘failure’ and also John Seddon’s interest in the concept! Especially when ‘failure demand’ is not considered something to be measured but to be ‘designed out’ of processes…

Unfortunately, whilst the ultimate aim is laudable, we are likely to be creating an entire industry of NI14 measurers in the process. The company rol which produces GovMetric gets a good mention in the guidance since they’re developing their package to support NI14, which may be an easy way of getting both dissatisfaction data and NI14, at a cost, but if you do it manually there is still a significant outlay in obtaining statistically significant data.

‘Que sera, sera’ as Doris Day sang or ‘O que sera’ as they apparently say in Portugal – whatever will be, will be!

The other big news this week was the launch by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) of the eGovernment Interest Group. There is also a forum there. Lots of potential to debate the Web 2.0 and the future! 

The interesting connection is the diagram on page 40 which has central to it a ‘circle of need’, which points to ‘customer satisfaction’ as an outcome.

Hence understanding the citizen’s needs (or their own presentation of themselves, as it were in Cornford & Richter’s paper) should assist us to deliver the services that make them satisfied.