Local democracy and blogs

A really interesting short film has been produced by what I think are Government-funded consultants to promote the use of blogs by local Councillors. A DVD version of the film and short booklet about the value of blogging has apparently been sent to to the Chief Officer of every local authority in the country and generated positive response from lots of people. I recommend checking out the videos on the CivicSurf website., but I'm also less

It's interesting to see Councillors as the interface between the bureaucracy of the local authority and local people. And I'm also reminded of the role they can play in interacting with the community-based organisations which I more typically spend my time with. As with many e-democracy projects, however, I am concerned that the whilst the 'e' stuff is becoming more accessible the democracy bit is inching away from us.

Of course a Councillor is going to be pleased to have an unfettered channel to people to explain themselves, with the ability to turn on and off the comments of others. Check out this 'debate' about allowing dogs on Brighton's beaches, which took place in a forum on a local newspaper, to see how bonkers that can be [http://forum.theargus.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=558]. A blog can hardly fail to produce a more reasonable discussion than this - it starts off posing the question and descends into recipes for roasting cats...

Whilst Wordpress may be democratising the world of 'publishing your views online' it seems to me that the decision-making within most Councils remains flawed - dominated mainly by national policy, local in-fighting and proscribed funding packages, rather than bottom-up, identifying local problems and searching for solutions.

And most public organisation's themselves are too large and unresponsive to be able to deal with even small amounts of user feedback via these new tools - this problem seems especially acute in PCTs and other NHS-related organisations. Check out www.patientopinions.org.uk for direct feedback from users about services, which I'd consider equally 'democratic' as being able to monitor my Councillor's movements, but which sits outside the NHSs ponderous and largely bureaucratic 'consultation' processes.

We have had a Councillors blog page in Brighton for several years - and an e-democracy.org supported forum - as well as a welter of other local projects and initiatives and launches and awareness-raising campaigns. We've also had Neighbourhood Renewal Funding - long term investment lurching forward on annual budgets - New Deal for Communities and projects big and small, e-enabled and not. We have email lists, blogs, online forums, YouTube videos and a network of people able to share information and ideas and opinions more openly than ever before, but I'm not sure we have less poverty, better healthcare services or more democracy...

CivicSurf » CivicSurf - the documentary in full