UK efforts

==UK parliamentary report titled, "Connecting Parliament with the Public."==
In a few years I predict (or wish) that the concept of "on your own
time, from anywhere" online public hearings/consultations will be as
common as the notion that parliamentary/legislative committees hold
"place and time bound" meetings in physical rooms. The key factor in
this report is that the MPs themselves are calling for the active
integration of ICTs into representative democratic processes. This
is the democratic intent (along with funding and technology
development) that is required for democracy to survive the noise of
the information age.
Clips from:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/
cmselect/cmmodern/368/368.pdf
Or: http://snipurl.com/88n4
House of Commons
Select Committee on
Modernisation of the House of
Commons
Connecting Parliament
with the Public
First Report of Session 2003Ë†04
==The Internet==
11. We are convinced of the need for a radical upgrading of the
website at an early opportunity, which will require significant
investment in systems and staff. The financial implications of this
are for the Finance and Services Committee and the House of Commons
Commission to consider (Paragraph 50)
12. We recommend that the Broadcasting Committee keep under review
the possibilities offered by the digital broadcasting of Parliament
(Paragraph 52) On-line consultations
13. We believe that the greater use of on-line consultation is a good
way for Parliament to take account of the views of the wider public
(Paragraph 53) 5
14. There have now been several experiments with on-line consultation
on an ad hoc basis, both by select committees and by all-party
groups. They have generally been successful and have proved effective
as a way of engaging members of the public in the work that we do and
of giving a voice to those who would otherwise be excluded. We urge
select committees and joint committees considering draft legislation
to make on-line consultation a more regular aspect of their work
(Paragraph 59) A Commons newsletter
15. We recommend that the House make available to those interested in
receiving the information (by post, e-mail or other convenient method
of communication) a weekly newsletter. Aimed at the general, non-
specialist reader, it should summarise the business of the previous
week and set out forthcoming business for the following week. In due
course, it may be possible to extend this service to allow for
communication of other information by e-mail (such as the daily list
of papers available in the Vote Office) and regular, subject-based
updates for which users could subscribe. A printed form of the
newsletter should be made available to visitors at various points
around the Parliamentary Estate, including the bookshop.
Electronically, it should occupy a prominent position on or near the
front page of the Parliamentary website (Paragraph 63) Information
for young people
16. We recommend that, as development of the website progresses, the
House authorities, in consultation with young people, develop the
website in a form which is more accessible to them (Paragraph 65)
4 Provision of information for the public
==The Internet==
33. Professor Stephen Coleman of the Oxford Internet Institute
pointed out to us that many more people now Å’visitâ€š Parliament
virtually than physically.15 Peter Riddell of The Times argued that
the Internet is now the principal means by which Parliament as an
institution communicates with voters and that it had significantly
reduced the importance of press reporting of Parliament: Å’We are
never going to get back to the days of massive reporting in the press
of Parliament and in many respects I think it is less important now
because of the Internet. I think the answer to a lot of your
questions âˆ‘ [is] to do with the parliamentary website, which is as
relevant to us as working journalists who use it âˆ‘ as it is to your
constituents and I think a lot of the answers to your questions are
improving the website and improving the information in that way.â€š16
34. The Web Centre Project Board told us that Hansard is now accessed
online by many more people than receive the printed edition, as are
many select committee publications and much legislative material.17
Getting the website right is therefore probably the single most
important thing that Parliament needs to do in this area. The
Parliamentary websites 35.
There are three Parliamentary websites: the main site at
http://www.parliament.uk, the educational site for schools and
colleges, http://www.explore.parliament.uk and the webcasting site,
http://www.parliamentlive.tv. Between them, these sites carry a vast
archive of material including virtually every official parliamentary
publication since the mid-1990s,18 a directory of MPs, Peers and
staff, general information for the public about how Parliament works,
Library Research Papers, practical information for visitors, live
audiovisual coverage of both Chambers and Westminster Hall, and audio-
only and audiovisual recordings of recent committee meetings. There
are over 9,000 pages hosted directly on the Commons site alone, and
over a million pages of linked publications. 19
36. The House of Commons has made tremendous advances in recent years
in the development of its website, part of the www.parliament.uk
website run by the Parliamentary Communications Directorate on behalf
of both Houses of Parliament. In July 2002, the House of Commons
Information Committee produced a Report entitled Digital Technology:
Working for Parliament and the Public.20 The Report set out five
draft principles for information and communication technologies,
which it recommended the House should adopt, reporting annually on
progress against each one. The principles, which the House of Commons
Commission has agreed to take into account in its strategic planning,
and which we endorse, are:
A. To use information and communications technology (ICT) to increase
the accessibility of the House and to enable the public, exercising
its right to use whatever medium is convenient, to communicate with
Members and with Committees of the House.
B. To use ICT to enhance the professionalism of Members, their staff
and House staff in all aspects of parliamentary life.
C. To use ICT to increase public participation in the work of the
House, enabling it to draw on the widest possible pool of experience,
including particularly those who have traditionally been excluded
from the political and parliamentary process.
D. To recognise the value of openness and use ICT to enable, as far
as possible, the public to have access to its proceedings and papers.
E. To develop and share good practice in the use of ICT by other
parliamentary and governmental bodies both within the United Kingdom
and elsewhere, and to work in collaboration with outside bodies.21
37. A new design for the main website was launched in conjunction
with a content management tool in the summer of 2002. The new design
won a number of accolades. It was described as Å’simple, elegant and
business-likeâ€š and Å’the best example of â€žopen government‰ adoption of
internet technologies that we have seenâ€š by the British Web Design
and Marketing Association. Since the re-design there has been a
steady increase in use of the www.parliament.uk site, reaching over
2.5 million page requests on the main server and over 5 million hits
(300,000 unique users) on the publications server in the month of
January 2004.
38. Given the size and importance of the site, the scale of the
investment which lay behind the 2002 redesign was very modest (around
Â£100,000 shared by both Houses, plus some Â£30,000 on improvements to
the search engine). Furthermore, there are only two staff dedicated
to co-ordinating content on the website, both shared between the two
Houses. Most content is generated in a decentralised way by various
staff throughout the two Houses, as a by-product of their other
duties.
39. Unlike some other organisations, the House cannot easily make
savings in other areas to pay for web development. Web publication
does not replace the need to provide printed documents for internal
and external use (in particular, for libraries); nor does the
development of the Explore Parliament website replace expenditure on
the school visits programme; nor webcasting replace televised
broadcasting; nor on-line consultation replace conventional
consultation by committees. The House authorities have had to
consider plans to expand and enhance the website alongside a range of
other pressures on the administration budget.
40. Despite the progress that has been made, there is widespread
dissatisfaction with the main website. As part of the Connecting
Communities with Parliament programme, participants were asked to
find the answer to a series of questions on the website. When we met
participants in Birmingham and Reading, almost all of them told us
they had experienced some difficulty finding the answers even to
simple questions. Many suggested that the search facility was not
satisfactory and that information was not classified and grouped in a
helpful way.22
41. These views were shared by Professor Coleman, who told us that
the website worked well for people who knew exactly what they were
looking for but not for the majority of people. He thought that the
website could not be said to be performing a Å’democratic functionâ€š
unless it was able to reach those people Å’who cannot find what they
might need but they do not even know is thereâ€š.23 Options for change
42. A number of incremental enhancements to the websites have
recently been made or are currently in the pipeline. These include
live webcasting (some in audio only) of all public sessions, more and
better guidance for the uninitiated on how to use the site, a more
informative and topical Å’newsâ€š page, more inward links to the site,
specimen pages illustrating the parliamentary art collections,
progress towards RNIB certification and further use of e-
consultation.
43. The Committee Office is working on a range of improvements to the
presentation and usability of select committee material on the web
with a view to making the scrutiny role of the House clearer to the
non-specialist user.
44. Work is also continuing on options for improving the accuracy and
usefulness of the search engine, for example by automatically linking
common-usage terms to official language (e.g. Å’doleâ€š to Å’unemployment
benefitâ€š).
45. Further research could also be commissioned into the needs and
interests of potential target audiences (e.g. young people, aged
people, ethnic minorities, the disabled) for whom there may be better
ways of explaining and presenting information about the House of
Commons using the internet. Such research would be an essential
prelude to any future fundamental upgrade of the site, but need not
hold up the other improvements outlined here.
46. The first phase of Parliamentary Information Management Services
(PIMS) is currently being designed and implemented. Towards the end
of 2004 this will replace the existing POLIS on-line index to
parliamentary information for internal users and allow the libraries
of both Houses to provide Members of both Houses and their staff with
a much improved full-text on-line information service, equipped with
a powerful search engine.
47. Although the priority for PIMS is to replace ageing systems for
internal information management, the content management and search
tools needed for the project have been selected with the possibility
in mind that they could be adapted and extended to cover the whole of
the parliamentary intranet and internet sites in the future.
Integration with e-mail might also make Å’e-alertingâ€š possible for
internal and external users.24 The technical and financial
implications are being explored actively on behalf of both Houses.
Subject to feasibility and a full exploration of the costs and
benefits, these developments could pave the way to significant
improvements for users of the www.parliament.uk site from 2005
onwards.
48. The costs of such a significant enhancement would not be limited
to software licences and technical integration. Even with the help of
sophisticated content management and search tools, a user friendly,
continuously updated on-line Å’encyclopaediaâ€š of parliamentary
activity would require significant additional editorial work to
ensure accuracy, impartiality and high-quality explanatory material
which helps users to understand the work of Parliament and how it
differs from Government. Additional staff, and additional
accommodation to house them, would be needed to support a high-
quality service of that kind.
49. As noted above, the House of Lords has very similar interests to
the House of Commons in these matters and close cooperation is a
practical necessity. Decisions to invest more would therefore have to
be closely coordinated with the authorities of the House of Lords.
Both the PIMS project and exploratory work to improve web services
(internal and external) are already being managed by joint project
boards under a joint Information Systems Programme Board for both
Houses.
50. There is scope for improvement to the accessibility and usability
of the House of Commons area of the parliamentary website (and of the
website as a whole) both in the short and the medium term. While
incremental changes of the kind described above can be made during
the financial year 2004Ë†05, a more radical overhaul of design and
searchability linked to the whole range of parliamentary
documentation will not be possible until the first phase of the PIMS
project has been completed at the end of 2004. We are convinced of
the need for a radical upgrading of the website at an early
opportunity, which will require significant investment in systems and
staff. The financial implications of this are for the Finance and
Services Committee and the House of Commons Commission to consider.
Interactivity
51. Digital media have a number of characteristics which determine
the way in which they can be used. They are Å’deep mediaâ€š, containing
many layers and types of information, which users can store, retrieve
or search for at the level of their choice. Digital media are capable
of reaching a small, target audience; they are interactive, capable
of conveying usersâ€š feedback; and they do not embody clear boundaries
between different types of media, such as television, the press,
radio and photography. Professor Stephen Coleman argued that it was
important to recognise the distinction between connecting with the
public as spectators and connecting with them as participants;
treating the Internet simply as Å’television for small audiencesâ€š was
a mistake.25 52.
The BBC Parliament channel is broadcast on digital television, which
is also an interactive medium. It is likely that in the fullness of
time the House may be able to exploit the interactivity of digital
television to connect more directly with viewers. The BBC told us
that the channelâ€šs audience drops sharply during a division, which is
unsurprising given that all they can broadcast is Members milling
around in the Chamber for fifteen minutes. It may be that these
hiatuses could be used to promote some interactive features of the
medium. We recommend that the Broadcasting Committee keep under
review the possibilities offered by the digital broadcasting of
Parliament.
==On-line consultations==
53. The internet is more than a medium for publishing documents and
broadcasting proceedings in Parliament; it is an interactive medium
that allows genuine two-way communication between politicians and the
people they represent. Of the five questions we asked in our on-line
consultation, the one which attracted the most responsesËœnearly half
the totalËœwas Å’does Parliament adequately reflect the concerns of
ordinary people?â€š While some respondents thought that it did, the
overall impression was that it did not. We believe that the greater
use of on-line consultation is a good way for Parliament to take
account of the views of the wider public.
54. Professor Coleman pointed out that on-line consultation is
something which the UK Parliament has pioneered: Å’On-line policy
consultations are something that you have in fact pioneered, and have
done better than any other parliament in the world. There is quite a
lot of data suggesting that these consultations have had an effect on
the fairly small minority of people who have engaged in themËœbecause
they have been deliberative, because they have been expansive over a
period of a month, and because you have taken people seriously.â€š26
55. The House has so far conducted several on-line consultations in
partnership with the Hansard Society, on subjects such as the draft
Communications Bill, the Family Tax Credit, and electronic democracy.
It is not only select committees which have initiated these
consultations: the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
(POST) commissioned a forum to discuss issues relating to flood
management and the All-Party Group on Domestic Violence also
commissioned a forum.27 Professor Coleman told us that these
consultations had generally been successful, drawing on public
expertise, treating the public with respect and encouraging a
respectful attitude. It was notable that Parliamentary consultations
did not attract the actionable or offensive contributions which
accounted for 20Ë†25% of those submitted to Government departmentsâ€š on-
line forums.
56. The purpose of on-line consultations must be made clear to
participantsËœthey are being asked to provide advice and information,
not to make policy. Parliament must also make a clear commitment to
the process, providing interaction with, and responses to, the public
participants. Good on-line consultations therefore always need
facilitators or moderators to guide (and where necessary edit) the
discussion. Participants can remain anonymous in the public forumËœfor
some subjects, this might be a prerequisite for participationËœbut
they need to register so that they are identifiable to some
independent third party.
57. The Information Committeeâ€šs Report endorsed these views on on-
line consultations, adding that special efforts needed to be made to
identify individuals and organisations who could impart experience
and expertise to the consultation, and to make on-line consultations
socially inclusive.
58. We conducted our own on-line consultation as part of this
inquiry, both to canvass public opinion on the issues we were
examining and to explore the consultation process itself. We devised
the list of key questions that we wanted participants to address and
the Hansard Society designed, maintained and moderated the site.28
The exercise generated a total of 152 responses from a wide range of
people ranging from those with a long-standing interest in or
connection with Parliament to those with no special interest in
Parliament at all. It is highly unlikely that we would have received
such a volume and range of responses to a traditional Å’call for
evidenceâ€š inviting interested parties to submit memoranda in writing
to the Clerk.
59. There have now been several experiments with on-line consultation
on an ad hoc basis, both by select committees and by all-party
groups. They have generally been successful and have proved effective
as a way of engaging members of the public in the work that we do and
of giving a voice to those who would otherwise be excluded. We urge
select committees and joint committees considering draft legislation
to make online consultation a more regular aspect of their work.
==Source Link==
[Full PDF file http://snipurl.com/88n4]