Ministers wake to the potential of people power on the net
Plan to put information online for web groups
Mass forums may boost economy, officials believe
Patrick Wintour, political editor
Saturday February 10, 2007
The Guardian
The government is planning to link up with the power of consumer and civic movements on the net by offering funding, permitting civil servants to post information on sites, and releasing information currently locked up in Whitehall.
Ministers believe web movements are rapidly transforming the power relationship between government and society.
The Cabinet Office strategy unit director, David Halpern, has declared that these new phenomena are likely to increase productivity across the economy, partly by driving out inefficient providers, and making consumers more informed.
Ministers also believe such movements will help people to make more considered choices on schools, hospitals and universities.
The government plans to put more information on the net, including health and safety records of restaurants, and local planning applications.
Whitehall officials regard it as inevitable that information-sharing forums will develop to discuss the quality of public sector performance, including individual GPs and teachers, as well as bad garages, rogue builders, and holiday destinations.
A two-month review inside the Cabinet Office, including ministers, communicaitons officials, and outside experts such as Tom Steinberg from mysociety, is to be established next week, for the government to consider how to respond.
Ministers were shocked when over 750,000 people petioned against road user charging on the Downing Street e-petition website set up late last year. They are discussing whether it is sensible for government to pull back from setting up its own sites if they are going to compete with existing innovative ones, such as netmums.com.
They are instead thinking of providing funding for grassroots sites dedicated to information sharing.
Sally Russell, director of the six-year-old, highly successful netmums, said: “It is ridiculous that the education department had been planning to set up its own version, Parents direct, duplicating how we can be a voice back to government.”
Explaining the government’s interest, Pat MacFadden, Cabinet Office minister, said: “This is not about technology, but about asking how empowered citizens can drive these services in a way that has not happened before.
“Polling evidence suggests we have a 20-year phenomeon of people becoming ever more demanding of government, yet ever more disengaged.
“So we in government have to ask how we can help this movement, work with it, and yet not smother it.
“We have been decent at putting services out there online, but the challenge now is take it to a new plane so there is a mutual conversation that helps drive choice and standards.
“We need a more sensible debate on how all this information government holds can be used to empower people, rather than have this stupid caricature of CCTV cameras in every home. We have to ask whether information or data sharing is an aid to empowerment, as I believe, or the next step to the big brother state.”
But sources say there is a debate inside Whitehall on the extent to which government should fund bottom-up initiatives, or instead launch its own more tightly controlled websites. One concern is that if bodies like Revenue & Customs set up sites, they would be seen to endorse all that appeared on a forum, including advice that was illegal or wrong.
One ministerial source said: “There is a new mass movement out there, better educated, more demanding, and we have to see if, in a light-touch way, we can help.”
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