Government under pressure to increase online openness

More people are likely to take part in policy debates if discussions are made available online

Speakers at the Social Networking World Forum yesterday called on the government to increase its accountability by moving its policy process online, giving citizens more say on potential legislation.

The speakers also argued that more data about government spending should be made quickly accessible to the public over the internet.

A new UK government web site called data.gov.uk was launched in January, which opened up 2,500 public data sets ranging from public finance information to how schools, hospitals and the police are performing.

Even though the web site is said to have made available three times the amount of data held by a similar site in the US called data.gov, the speakers said the government needed to do more to prove its commitment to online openness.

Paul Staines, a political commentator and blogger for the Guido Fawkes Blog, praised the Conservative Party for its recent Technology Manifesto.

“The Tories will [publicise details of] all central government contracts over £25,000. Why have we not done this before? If competitors know the amount, it will provide a downward pressure on public spending. Also, if there are poor contracts formed, the public and journalists will be able to see this immediately,” said Staines.

The manifesto also promised that the Conservative Party would involve the public in the legislative process by introducing a “technology-enabled Public Reading Stage”.

“The public’s inclusion in Bills through a public feed online will mean experts get to comment,” said Staines.

But Staines said that even the Conservatives are not going far enough. Their proposal to introduce a "Right to Data" that will allow the public to request and receive public data sets could be made more transparent, he said.

“At the moment we have freedom of information by requests, but let's move to a system where the presumption is we can see everything rather than the other way around,” he said.

Dave Briggs, a marketing spokesman for Learning Pool, said the culture of collaboration between the government and public needs to be changed radically.

“The opportunity presented by the internet is one of scale and allows the government to exhibit behaviour on a mass scale," he added. "Because many of the opportunities are so new, I think there will be pain as some online conversations don’t work. But even if these don’t work, it does not mean politicians should not try and innovate and do new stuff."

Opening up the NHS and local government through social media was another hot topic at the forum.

Ingrid Koehler of the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) said that before more local government bodies can participate in social media, senior managers need to buy into the agenda.

“The people at the top need to give the people in the communications teams the authority to engage with people,” she said.

Huw Edwards, NHS Hounslow communications officer, said health services should use social media to collaborate internally as well as externally with customers.

“It’s a way of telling people what is going on when the news won’t necessarily make the national newspapers,” he said.

Edwards said a social media agenda for the NHS would be much easier to implement than the government’s Integrated Care Record Service, which has cost the public between £12bn and £20bn and is five years behind schedule.

“Anyone can do a social media strategy. It is very simple to get people online. They just need to be given a brief list of what to do and what not to do. I would be hesitant to put too many regulations around it,” he said.