E-democracy, e-Government and ee by gum!

Whilst looking around the Internet on the subject of 'involving people in Government', I've discovered some wonderful resources which I will document here, as I work my way through them.

Today I joined the UK and Ireland E-Democracy Exchange.

In my first post in this group, I mentioned my Downing Street petition requiring local elected representatives to reply to reasonable policy discussion from constituents.

In my first post to the UK and Ireland E-Democracy Exchange, I documented the reasoning behind my petition to the Prime Minister which was as follows:

How wonderful it is to read your posts about e-democracy! As a newcomer here, I feel, after many years, I've just 'come in from the cold'.

So much wisdom has already been spoken above that I hardly dare to add my half pence. However:

On the one hand, there are so many opportunities, ideas and expertise amongst the general public which could be harnessed to make our communities better places to live in.

On the other hand, we have Governmental administrative bureacracies probably well motivated but which suffer from all the usual bureacratic inertia problems, many of which are already well documented here.

So individual efforts fail because they don't have the resources and funding and, often, aren't supported by the bureacracies holding power.

Governmental bureacracies fail, despite having enormous sums of money to spend, because the projects they understand are often bricks and morter projects not the badly needed 'soft' community based projects that will actually work. (For example building a new drug rehab unit is more attractive than funding salaries of home based rehab professionals.) They often also don't have the support of the local communities who readily see the solution as not working.

The official UK Governmental consultation system is a joke. It's a one way street and allows no debate enabling both sides to learn, re-evaluate and further comment. There are no audit trails allowing the public to prove forensically that suggestions have been taken seriously or discounted with reason.

The cost of failure to all of us is huge. Criminal recidivism remains high and local communities in desperate need of regeneration get new Council offices costing millions.

The problem is systemic. The system just doesn't work as well as it needs to.

The solution is obvious and lies with the "neighbourhood forums" described by Steven Clift above.

But how do we make it all happen when official "neighbourhood forums" may be regarded by Governmental bureacracies as perhaps tantamount to a turkey voting for Christmas?

Perhaps the answer lies in creating a single, very powerful, lever that will incentivise those in power to bring the system in.

Much as I hate yet more laws, the lever may be a simple, new but very powerful law.

The law would:

'require paid elected Local Government representatives to reply and debate constituents policy proposals'.

This law wouldn't need to require public official forums to be set up but locally elected representatives would quickly find it was the most efficient way to deal with the policy issues raised, ie. where matters have been raised before and all arguments already tested.

Parliament understands about setting up new laws. They think it's a really good thing so they would go for it.

Government Departments would see it as being a problem for the local politicians so would not hinder it.

The public would support the law because they would see themselves as getting better customer service.

MPs would not mind voting for it because they would (initially) be excluded.

The new law is even founded in common sense. My ol' pappy always told me it was rude not to reply to a question. Yet, throughout the UK, many Local Government Councillors are steadfastly refusing to reply to communications from their constituents on policy issues. ( I speak from bitter personal local experience and I can't believe my Local District Councillors are the only one's in the country behaving in this way).

So, full of enthusiasm, I have set up a petition on the 10 Downing Street site to try to get the ball rolling.

If you would like to sign this petition, simply google 'Downing Street petition councillors' or follow the link through my profile blog.

Thanks for reading this (rather long) post from a new comer. I await your comments with trepidation.

More soon

Bye for now

Rob

P.S. They were kind to me. Read their comments on the subject of e-democracy
.