04 Oct 2004

Educational reach

Wouldn’t it be better if educational institutions could make their expertise available beyond their campus or catchment area.

So that,

Pupils interested in pursuing a particular course of study need not be constrained by what is offered by their local school
Studies need not be disrupted by a relocation from one part of the country to another
Teachers and lecturers could reach students beyond their own campus who have an interest in their specialised subject
Vocational training and adult education could be offered at the time and in the location that best suits the student
Sufficient resources would become available to invest in minority subjects where demand is thinly spread
More UK education was globally available for everyone who could benefit

Posted by Peter Reed on 04/10/04 at 12:45pm
Categories · "What do we want?" · Wibbipedia/MindtheGap
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When children need protection from their own history

Putting children’s services online raises a number of issues that simply don’t apply to adults, many of them relating to access: who could and who should access a child’s information?

The security of children’s data is paramount for sound child protection reasons.

By reasons of age, immaturity and the predilections of some in our society, children are far more vulnerable than most adults. Corrupt disclosure or unauthorised access to information about a child can compromise her physical safety, the more so if indications of being an ‘easy target’, such as having a history of abuse, can be gleaned from records. Even the mere fact that a child has used mental health services or attended a GUM clinic can put her at enhanced risk.

It is also possible for a child who needs to be hidden to be traced through corrupt disclosure.

This has already happened where, for example, abusive ex-spouses have used local contacts within council departments to find the new address of their family. Some families have had to leave an area and move several times to ensure that they cannot be found. Any national system would make it far easier to trace them.

There are also occasions when it is vital for an adopted or fostered child’s well-being that her natural parents cannot locate her.

Quite apart from child protection considerations, children also have the same ECHR rights as adults, including the Article 8 right to a private life. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has just reminded the Government of this very forcefully in its scrutiny of the Children Bill, which proposed a database of all children, plus widespread information-sharing amongst ‘professionals’, without the knowledge and consent of child or parents.

The JCHR warns that the provisions appear to create a situation where there is “no meaningful content left to a child’s Article 8 right to privacy and confidentiality in their personal information.” Should the Bill go through in its present form, an Article 8 challenge is an absolute certainty.

Unfold and continue reading...

There are other problems about privacy when one considers the needs of older children. Who should have control of a child’s records? Few would argue that parents should normally deal with information relating to, say, their 5-year-old, but should they automatically have access to their 14-year-old’s file?

It’s important here to understand a fundamental legal principle: currently, an older child can access some services – in particular medical or social services – without parental consent or knowledge if the practitioner believes the child to be ‘Gillick competent’ (after a landmark case of that name). Such competence depends on a practitioner’s reasonable belief that a particular child is sufficiently mature to understand the implications of a particular course of action, but it will vary according to the situation. For example, a child may be able to consent to a course of antibiotics, but not competent to consent to long-term steroid treatment. Moreover, one child may be Gillick competent at 10, while another still isn’t competent at 13. There can be no hard and fast rule. Maturity is seen as ‘gradually evolving capacity’.

Let’s suppose that a Gillick-competent teenager wished to access sexual health or drug treatment advice without her parents’ knowledge. If it is vital that her parents don’t know, could her confidentiality be assured? More, the fear that parents might ‘find out’ could deter a teenager from seeking essential advice in the first place - and our teenage pregnancy, STI and drug abuse rates are already through the roof. But if certain areas of information were suddenly closed off to parents, they might well become suspicious.

Parents cannot be barred altogether from looking at their child’s records. They have parental responsibility until their child is 16, and by no means all decisions are susceptible to the ‘Gillick competence’ test – only some medical and social services decisions. Indeed, it is important on human rights grounds that parents generally do have oversight of their child’s file – the reason why all human rights instruments stress the role of parents is that they stand between the child and the State to prevent ‘arbitrary interference’ or any other breach of her human rights.

Children are not entirely separate from their parents - except sometimes! But that’s where the difficulty lies. Maturity and independence are gradual processes rather than something that happens at the age of 16, and highly individual processes at that. What kind of system could possibly accommodate that?

One final point: it is very important that a child has the chance to re-invent herself when she reaches adulthood, particularly if she has had a troubled and turbulent childhood. Having any kind of centralised record hobbles that opportunity. We all create our own adult identity according to how much reality we can cope with; how many people would really want to be reminded of every last detail of their childhood?

Of course, at least some of the problems and dangers that I’ve outlined above already exist, but any kind of centralised system magnifies them to an unacceptable level. Within ARCH, we simply cannot see a way in which children’s records can be ‘joined up’ safely and with proper respect for children’s human rights.

Wrap up...

Posted by Terri Dowty on 04/10/04 at 10:19am
Categories · "What do we want?" · Foundation of Trust
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What if the government had built Friends Reunited?

Over the last year I’ve been using this question to challenge people’s thinking and assumptions about what types of things the government could or should be doing on the internet. Friends Reunited is a site both wildly popular and probably more condusive to social cohesion than any specific government intervention in that area.

But why mention it? Well, mainly because this site has created masses of public utility and private wealth using data which the government itself owned and didn’t see the full value of - the names and locations of all the schools in the UK. Just imagine how profoundly different the public’s view of eGovernment would be if it had built this service! It has a relatively low cost base, and works by recycling data that the government holds for one purpose (to know what schools exist) for another. Given its enormous membership, it must be several times more popular and widely used than any UK government site. So whilst I’m not advocating the first e-nationalisation, I would like people to look at Friends Reunited and learn a few lessons.

* Government owns enormous amounts of data which is collected for one reason, but which can provide different and highly attractive services for the public via the internet. I believe that each department should have a ‘data-recycling czar’ who’s job it is to extract hods of value for the public from these under-tapped resources. The way that government passed up the opportunity to buy up UpMyStreet.com shows that this lesson has been terribly misunderstood in the past.

* The best services are sometimes undemanded. No survey in the world would have shown there to be an unmet demand for Friends Reunited.

* Important lesson for the politicians here - ‘Sexy’ services like Friends Reunited are a way of legitimising high expenditure on less glamorous but more essential IT infrastructure services. Show people nothing of real value to people and they’ll start to wonder where their billions are going. But build something like this, or follow Santa Clara, and you change the relationship between a whole population and e-government.

* There is currently no systematic way of assessing whether a site like Friends Reunited is a public service which should be protected, or a private company that be allowed to fail. We need a clear new way of identifying public goods that exist only online.

* Build service of sufficient attractiveness and people will learn how to use the technology to get at it. Friends Reunited doubtless got many people onto the net for the first time, most of them without formal training programmes. The assumption that technology change has to be accompanied by massive corporate change and training programmes is true only of bad technology. We didn’t need national programmes to learn how to use our mobiles, did we?

That’s all for now folks.

Posted by Tom Steinberg on 04/10/04 at 9:59am
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03 Oct 2004

Admin note - author instructions, temporary email problem

I’ve been having problems sending and receiving mail at weekends on the kablenet server. Please cc to william at williamheath dot net.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To post as an author, email me for username and password (or for anonymous contribution use anon/enter)

1. go to www.idealgovernment.com/bigb

2. Enter username and password

4. Click on “Publish” (top left)
5. Key in the body text
6. Add a title
7. Click “Preview” if you wish
8. Change “entry status” from closed to open
9. Click on the category (hold ctrl if its several)
10. then click “Publish”

Authors can change their given name and email in “My account”

Posted by William Heath on 03/10/04 at 5:14pm
Categories · Ideal Goverment - project
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(offtopic) Question and/or suggestion for this site

Is an RSS feed available of the ‘Comments’ pages?

Sometimes it’s a bit tough to find the latest comments that have been posted, and if there was (effectively) an RSS feed for each article + its comments, then we could ‘subscribe’ to both new articles as they are posted, and to the particular discussions we’re interested in following.

Or an RSS feed of ‘Latest Items Posted’ would be great too.

Just a thought.

Posted by Simon Banton on 03/10/04 at 11:21am
Categories · Ideal Goverment - project
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02 Oct 2004

WFRC wants communication by rights for all

The World Forum on Communication Rights is an independent civil-society led initiative, open to all seeking democratic, just and participatory media and communication.

The World Summit on the information Society seems determined to turn a blind eye to many issues central to an information society that puts people first. Who owns information and knowledge? Who controls the production process? Who rules the circulation of knowledge, and in whose interests? Who is able to use it, and for what ends?

Many believe that communication must be at the core of any information society — some call for a communicating society. They believe that securing communication rights should for all be high on all our agendas. Yet the concept of communication rights is new. What do electronic surveillance, concentration of ownership of media, the failure to meaningfully address the Digital Divide, the privatisation of knowledge in the public domain, and the apparent non-existence of the poor in mainstream media have in common?

They all reflect the growing importance of communication to society, culture, politics and the economy, and an attempt by powerful governments and corporations to control them for their own ends. Asserting communication rights not only a practical response to these threats, but also a positive effort to realise the huge potential of old and new communication media and technologies for all.

Unfold and continue reading...

World forum for communication rights statement on communications rights

This statement, presented by professor Cees Hamelink the World Forum on Communication Rights December 11 2003, in Geneva, aims at gathering under the name “Communication Rights” a number of existing Human Rights related to information and communication. This statement is there to remind us that the majority of these rights are often ignored on the ground everywhere. The statement calls for a real practical application of these rights at all the levels.
Feel free to print and distribute!
Statement on Communication Rights
Vision and Context

Communication plays a central role in politics, economics, and culture in societies across the globe. Information and communication technologies, together with the political will to implement communication rights, can provide vital new opportunities for political interaction, social and economic development, and cultural sustainability. The means to achieve these ends include universal access of all to the means of communication and information and to a diversity of media throughout the world.

Communication is a fundamental social process and the foundation of all social organization. It is more than the mere transmission of messages. Communication is human interaction among individuals and groups through which identities and meanings are shaped. Communication rights are based on a vision of the free flow of information and ideas which is interactive, egalitarian and non-discriminatory and driven by human needs, rather than commercial or political interests. These rights represent people’s claim to freedom, inclusiveness, diversity and participation in the communication process.

Our vision of communication rights is based upon the recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all people.

While recognizing the great potential of communication in contemporary societies, we also draw attention to some of the problems facing full recognition of communication rights. The problem of political control and interference with freedom of expression remains a central concern. Along with media saturation comes a dependency upon the media for knowledge about the world, a dependency that is greater in times of armed conflict. At the same time, the influence of propaganda and censorship has never been so widespread.

Communication has become big global business. Many of its products and services are shaped by commercial goals instead of considerations based on the common good. The global media market is largely controlled by a small number of giant conglomerates, endangering the diversity and independence of information flows. This threat to diversity is heightened by current trends in international trade negotiations, which risk subjecting ‘culture’ to the same rules as commodities and undermining indigenous culture, knowledge and heritage. On the other hand, strict intellectual property regimes create information enclosures and pose critical obstacles to emerging ‘knowledge’ societies.

The exclusion of large numbers of people from the democratic political process due to the lack of effective means of participation is another challenge for communication rights. This problem is exacerbated by the expansion of ‘around the clock’ powers to monitor and intercept communications, justified in the name of security but almost universally abused.

New technologies and a more profound understanding of communication rights have the power to make information and knowledge more readily available to people everywhere and to transform social and political processes. However, much remains to be done for this to become a reality. Global communication remains far from universal, with most of the world’s people still excluded from meaningful access to communication, information and the media.
Communication Rights

With the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the international community recognised the inherent dignity of all members of the human family by providing everyone with equal and inalienable rights. Communication rights are intrinsically bound up with the human condition and are based on a new, more powerful understanding of the implications of human rights and the role of communications. Without communication rights, human beings cannot live in freedom, justice, peace and dignity. The recognition of this universal human need has inspired us to set out a statement on communication rights based upon the key principles of Freedom, Inclusiveness, Diversity and Participation. *
Freedom

The core of communication rights is Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression and opinion; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” This basic freedom is also recognized in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 19), in other UN treaties, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 13), and in all three main regional human rights instruments (Africa, the Americas and Europe).

Despite these guarantees, censorship remains a reality as humankind embarks on the 21st century. Political and commercial pressures on independent news reporting are ever-present and freedom of speech on the Internet is under serious threat in many parts of the world. The right to freedom of expression is also increasingly under threat from significantly enhanced State powers to monitor and intercept communications around the world. It is crucial that the international community adopts robust rules and mechanisms to secure effectively the confidentiality of private communications. It is therefore urgent that we renew global commitment to freedom of information and expression as “the touchstone of all freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated”, as stated in The United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 59(I), adopted at its very first session in 1946.
Inclusiveness

International human rights treaties include many provisions designed to guarantee inclusiveness, such as universal access to information and knowledge, universal access to education, protection of the cultural life of communities and equal sharing of advancements in science and technology. In the current global reality, however, large numbers of people are excluded from access to the basic means of communication, such as telephony, broadcasting and the Internet. Access to information about matters of public concern is also unduly limited, and is also very unequal between and within societies. True commitment to inclusiveness requires the allocation of considerable material and non-material resources by the international community and national governments to overcome these obstacles.
Diversity

Worldwide, existing forms of cultural, informational and linguistic diversity are seriously threatened. Diversity in culture, language and communication is as critical to the sustainability of the planet as the world’s biological and natural diversity. Communication diversity is crucial to democracy and political participation, to the right of all people to promote, protect and preserve their cultural identity and the free pursuit of their cultural development.

Diversity is needed at a number of levels including the availability of a wide range of different sources of information, diversity of ownership in the media and forms of access to the media that ensure that the views of all sectors and groups in society are heard.
Participation

International human rights stress the importance of people’s participation in political processes which from the perspective of communication rights implies the right to have one’s views taken into account. In this context, the equal participation of women and the participation of minorities and marginalized groups is particularly important. Communication is essential to the processes of political decision-making. As the role of media in modern politics expands, this should not obstruct but rather support the participation of people in the political process through the development of participatory governance at all levels
Vision and Reality

Communication rights remain for most of the world’s people a vision and an aspiration. They are not a reality on the ground. On the contrary, they are frequently and systematically violated. Governments must be constantly reminded that they are legally required under the human rights treaties they have ratified to implement, promote and protect communication rights. Communication rights are the expression of fundamental needs. The satisfaction of these needs requires a strong political will and the allocation of substantial resources. Lack of commitment to such resources serves only to deepen the global distrust of political institutions.

At the same time, full implementation of communication rights cannot depend only upon governments. Civil society has a key role to play in terms of advocacy for rights, in terms of monitoring and exposing rights abuse and in terms of educating and popularising rights.

Encouraging and facilitating people to assert these rights through different types of social action and to use them to realize the enormous potential of both the old and new technologies of media and communication, are vital tasks for all concerned people.

We endorse this Statement as an expression of our commitment to communication rights and we further undertake to develop an International Charter on Communication Rights with the widest possible support as a common standard to which every individual and every organ of society should take action to achieve.

Geneva, 11 December 2003

* The most relevant references to communication rights in international human rights instruments.

On the principle of freedom:
Freedom of Expression:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 19
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), Article 19
Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), Article 13

Protection of privacy:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 12
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), Article 17
Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), Article 16

On the principle of inclusiveness:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Articles 19, 21, 28.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), Articles 13, 15.
Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation (1966), Article IV (4).

On the principle of diversity:
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), Articles 1 (1), 27 .
Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (1995), Article 5.

On the principle of participation:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Articles 21, 27.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), Article 25.

Wrap up...

Posted by William Heath on 02/10/04 at 8:53pm
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“Farmers want a one-stop shop…it’s like Bluewater out there”

The e-world on one hand has been brilliant for farmers, who are finally
using it, but on the other they are having to employ people to fill in
all the government e-forms, which require everything from tracing
when Cow no 44 last did a poo to risk assessments on the farm pond.

There are also too many quality assurance schemes, which
means too many different inspectors/inspections required.

Lord Haskins is supposed to be in charge of trying to minimise farm
bureaucracy - eg grants coming from all different places. Two of the major
rural agencies are joining forces as part of this. I think also that more
and more of the funding - over and beyond the CAP Single Farm Payment from
next year, will ultimately be channelled through the Regional Development
Agencies, which is the sort of thing they should be doing.

Farmers want a One Stop Shop. At the moment its like Bluewater out there…

Agriculture and food production have become impracticably
bureacratically controlled - and involving far too many sources of control
and funding. It’s consultancy heaven for “rural consultants” - and the
industry is waiting to see what Haskins can get done about it.

Will farmers get what they want?

Farm and landowner lobbying is pretty well organised - lots of listening
being done but as you know Elliott Morley not keen on countryside and
Mrs Beckett only goes there once a year in her caravan.

Direct action now being taken by some farmers and, as you will have seen,
by the hunt lobby, which left dead horses lying around Brighton this week.
ie growing frustration from group of people who have never gone beyond
marching for peace and love in their youth in the 1960s.

Posted by Catherine Paice on 02/10/04 at 10:51am
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01 Oct 2004

The Wired UK Manifesto, October 1996

8 years is a long time ago, especially when measured in ’internet time‘, yet The Wired UK Manifesto, hailing from October 1996, is remarkably prescient:

Transparency is the first duty of government
Freedom of information - in the town hall in Whitehall in Edinburgh, Brussels and Westminster and even in the vehicle licensing centre in Swansea - is not an optional extra. Government is a mechanism for knowing, and all of us should be able to use that machinery. At a minimum, transparency means using technology to provide access to tax services, job advice, welfare payments, local council information, parliamentary proceedings, environmental monitoring, accounts of members’ interests, school performance and all the other information and services that government provides.

But simply putting them online is only a beginning. Technology can, and should, make them truly open. Everyone should have the ability not just automatically to file a tax return, but also to track its progress through the tax system, to see who is working on it when - and why. Freedom of information in government is also freedom of inquiry for its citizens.

New technology requires new politics
Wiring our government processes is only a first step. An online nation is only as good as its citizens make it. Our challenge is to return the public sector to the public.

Privatisation has been used to get the government out of many areas where it wasn’t needed. Now we need to engage in “publicisation” - putting private individuals back into the process of government as interested, active citizens setting their own agendas and reacting to the needs of the people around them.

A civil service ruled by its own ethos, a political class more concerned with election than representation, a government that operates behind the mask of official secrecy: none of these will be acceptable in an era that takes information and participation as universal facts of life.

We must create a new type of democracy. Not an indefinite digital plebiscite on every issue; representation still has a role to play. But why should political parties monopolise the right to represent? Redefining democracy means smashing the cartel of representation they have established and choosing our own voices, as individuals and as groups.

Organise!
Politicians think that people who don’t bother to vote will not shoulder other burdens of state. But not voting is the politicians’ failure, not ours - a sign of alienation, not apathy. The 19th century bequeathed the statistical state - seemingly impervious to influence in its scale and abstraction. The 21st-century state we are building will be the accessible state - personal, anecdotal and open to the individual.

Through technology we can acquire the knowledge, and the freedom, to act. Government cannot stop this. It can hinder - or it can help, and cause alienation to wither. The future belongs to those who build it. Let’s start building it now.

Via Tom Loosemore, also posted on perfect.co.uk

Posted by Robin Grant on 01/10/04 at 3:34pm
Categories · Political engagement · Across the Board · Ideal Goverment - project
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An agenda for the ICT industry

If I remember rightly, government spend globally on ICT is around 16% of all ICT spend. So whatever e-government policy the government pursues is going to have an effect on the ICT industry. How about including an element of the e-government agenda that considers how we want to influence the supply side of the market. Why should anyone care? Because a competitive industry will be more effective at delivering the solutions that government needs, and will contribute more to the UK economy.

Here is my starter :

Aligning government standards with our major trading partners to ensure that the UK public sector has access to the widest choice of suppliers, and UK suppliers are able to recover investment across the widest possible international market
Working with industry to improve risk management and allocation of risk on major projects in order to raise the bar on the scale of transformation that government and suppliers are prepared to undertake
Actively encouraging the development of standard, off the shelf solutions to recurring needs: in order to reduce start-up costs and project risk
Seek to eliminate unnecessary procurement costs - recognising that wherever they are incurred, procurement costs are ultimately borne by the taxpayer
Encourage new suppliers to enter the market and develop innovative approaches - particularly those who can introduce into the UK experience of solving similar problems elsewhere
Public humiliation for any organisation which issues, or responds to a tender describing a commercial relationship as a “strategic partnership”

Posted by Peter Reed on 01/10/04 at 2:20pm
Categories · "What do we want?" · Across the Board
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Lashing together some threads

Not Anon here, but Anon’s friend. Thank you for providing this facility.

I recognise quite a few author names from the e-gov circuit. Good to see we all have some life left in us as we tackle the behemoth of e-government.

Two apparently seperate threads sit one above the other.

1. We must take joined up e-government out of the hands of government
2. We want to take e-enabled advice and services to the most needy

From my perspective they are related. Improved service delivery can mean taking it out of the gov’s hands and putting it in the hands of those who can target delivery to the most needy/socially excluded or whatever label they are given.

Whats interesting about the e-Government intermediaries policy, (hinted at but not named in the first topic) is that while its initial adoption would be by those online (the middle market, occaisional irregular use of gov services) its real power to deliver benefits is actually in e-enabling those groups who can work with the digitally-divided. Allowing, say, a particular support group to not just be accredited to government but to be able to act as a full agent who can do more than just distribute a form. Instead, designing a better one, or even plucking answers for the appropriate field from their client records.

Posted by Anon on 01/10/04 at 1:34pm
Categories · "What do we want?" · Design: Co-creation
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Get fit

"The body politic is like the human body. When it is lean and fit, it is more – not less – able to do what we ask of it.”

O Letwin

Posted by Anon on 01/10/04 at 1:08pm
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Death of the Department

Peter Reed’s earlier post addressed the challenge of creating joined up government by proposing non-governmental intermediaries aiming at specific markets of citizens.

I would like to offer readers a different model. But first, why is ‘joined-up government’ desirable? I think it’s pretty straightforward to see that most of us don’t really care who supplies a service, we just want it to work. So when I renew my car’s tax disc at the Post Office I’m not concerned over whether it’s Royal Mail, the DVLA or the Department for Transport responsible. I just want the disc so I don’t get fined.

The sames applies for any kind of service I can imagine. Need a new kidney? Fine, give it to me and fast. Information on whether Brighton beach is safe for swimming? Yes please. And so on… as long as the service is of a good quality, accountable and available I’m not fussed. Of course for logistical purposes and to ensure accountability we need ministries, agencies and so on. Government would be just unmanageable without it and Parliament would be incapable of keeping tabs on matters.

But when it comes to service consumption we want it to be easy to find and use - in other words joined up. We don’t need departments for online service delivery. What we need to do is use content management technology and XML-based standards like Resource Description Framework to connect services and pull information from departments together into a single government portal.

Not portals again you all cry! Well actually yes. But instead of just always pointing to somewhere else this new site would actually do the services itself. Let’s look at an example. If you visit Directgov looking for work you are presented with external links to the following brands which seem to offer overlapping services: Jobcentre Plus, Worktrain, Jobpoints, Jobseeker Direct, New Deal, learndirect… Confusing to say the least. If we travel into the future and visit the new government portal and look for jobs what do we get? Immediate access to jobs listings, advice and locations of the nearest office to visit for more help. No more external links, just services right there and then. If we want we can personalise the portal to our needs. I own a small business so show me the VAT return services. You are a single parent, you want to see how tax credits work and when you’ll get yours. We all need to feel confident that such personalisation isn’t at the cost of our privacy. Such confidence won’t be built by technology but by processes and legislation.

Directgov is complicated and it really doesn’t do much at the moment itself… Directgov currently has 76 links on its homepage compared to 13 for Google. While the search on Directgov is pretty good few would argue that you can go to more places with Directgov compared to where Google can take a browser. Simple, standardised technologies could reach across all the government silos to provide easy access for citizens.

This isn’t about bashing Directgov, it’s a MASSIVE improvement on what went before. I’m just painting a picture of what we could have: simple, easy online government which is department-agnostic. That’s what I’d like to see in my ideal government.

Posted by Jason Kitcat on 01/10/04 at 12:44pm
Categories · Across the Board
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We want government-guaranteed national e-markets

Government should have a policy for open e-markets. Not e-government services, online procurement or bridging the digital divide but a policy to drive online marketplaces open to any seller. This specific technology has potential that only government action can release.

eBay is an open e-market but it operates in a very simple and tight niche, basically an online version of car boot sales. It has however unleashed millions of micro-sellers and created £billions in new economic activity.

But the other 99% of the economy is made up of much more complex markets. Could an eBay style flood of micro-sellers be unleashed across virtually all sectors of the economy? Yes. But that will only happen if policymakers allow it.

eBay allows you to sell things. What most of us have to sell, day-in-day-out, is time. It’s either hours when we are willing to work for an employer, or sell our services to a customer (as a housecleaner, minicab provider or tutor for instance), or the time of a facility we own, perhaps hiring out a bike, letting a room overnight or even renting out our DVD collection to neighbours.

The private sector tries hard to serve time-based markets. Listings sites such as job boards are useful for certain types of transaction. But these markets are far more demanding than item sales and no private firm can provide the underpinning authority to overcome all the issues involved. Nor does any private firm have the incentive to renounce user lock-in, fix pricing or operate with total transparency. All these facilities are required for a truly valuable market for the smallest sellers once you get beyond item sales.

It is against the grain of thinking about Internet development but government could solve all those problems and enable a marketplace that gave any seller of any size currently unimaginable levels of market access, control over transactions, safety and information about opportunities. The markets would be designed, built, funded and run by the private sector but have a unique relationship with the highest authorities in the land.

Imagine a system of e-markets as a public utility. Let’s call it “National E-Markets” (NEMs). Like the water supply, roads network, electricity or money supply these markets would operate within a unique legal framework. They would be available to any individual or legal entity in the country as a means to buy or sell as they wished.

A policy to create interlocking e-markets underpinned by the highest authorities in the land could dramatically broaden economic activity while raising quality of life for so many people. All of it at no cost to taxpayers. Sounds too good to be true? See extended text below and read the details at: www.nationalmarkets.com

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• These markets probably wouldn’t be based on auctions or catalogues. They would need new mechanisms based on the specific needs of the project. How do they come into being?

• The model that gave us both the National Lottery and the Channel Tunnel is probably the simplest way to launch such a service. Government creates a list of benefits it will offer the operators of NEMs (for example: an automated relationship with licensing authorities and courts, use of public sector buying to pump prime markets). But it also produces a list of broad obligations with which operators will have to comply (based around transparency, neutrality and funding of universal access for example). This package of benefits is on offer for perhaps 15 years with the obligations covering the same period.

• Assume these markets are to be funded by a flat rate percentage mark-up on each transaction for the operators. Any qualifying consortium can bid to run the service, the one that commits to the lowest percentage charge on users wins the concession.

• As with other forms of national infrastructure, the operating consortium must have its potential power limited. It might be that the consortium itself runs the back-end servers but is not allowed to operate the front-end marketplaces. Instead, it has to revenue share with an individual franchisee in each sector. Anyone must be free to build any value added services they wish on top of the basic marketplace. Obviously there will not be any constraints on any alternative trading forums.

• Once the concession is awarded government’s role is just to get out of the way. The consortium can launch in whatever sectors it wishes, probably starting with already very fragmented markets such as facilities for tourists, household services and journey provision then expand into adjoining sectors as new franchisees are found.

• In each sector in which it operated NEMs would offer (a) immediate market access for any seller on their own terms (b) the lowest transaction costs (c) the widest possible range of sellers and therefore greatest competition (d) immediate, underwritten, purchasing for any buyer (e) all the information on localised supply/demand/pricing in any sector to enable anyone to make decisions about market entry.

• As the system expanded it could add functions which have no parallel today. Extraordinarily efficient investment in the development of individual sellers, linked transactions bundling and underwriting requirements from multiple sectors into one personalised transaction, micro-finance, community banking and so on.

• Why isn’t this happening? It’s partly a mindset problem. Many policymakers are in awe of eBay and assume that if “the market” has failed to provide something similar for a wider range of transactions it’s because it is impossible to achieve. Additionally, parliament is spending millions on e-government initiatives, e-procurement through closed markets and bridging the digital divide. Enthusiasm for yet another area of the online world requiring a policy can be muted. That’s unfortunate because open markets are probably the most potent facility online technology has to offer. They could easily be made to provide most of the planned e-government, online access and public sector procurement facilities as part of the operators’ up-front funding commitments.

Wrap up...

Posted by Wingham Rowan on 01/10/04 at 9:16am
Categories · Across the Board
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We must take joined up e-government out of the hands of government

We have seen much progress putting government services online but virtually no progress joining them up.

At core this is not a technical problem – it’s an ownership problem. Government agencies do not own the problem of joining up services. They will never make a good job of it, and should not be asked to spend public money in this way.

Freeing up responsibility for joined-up e-government services and encouraging diversity is a step towards more radical change

Imagine a small remote rural community. They interact with the County and District Councils, numerous DEFRA agencies, Inland Revenue, Primary Healthcare, Customs and Excise, and the Local Tourist Board. They have an interest in some EU programmes. They might face a minor drug and alcohol problem, high unemployment, low take-up of tertiary education. They have a relatively large population of retired incomers. To reach their nearest hospital, library, or secondary school they face an hour drive, or a full day trip on public transport.

Which government agency has sufficent motivation to provide joined up e-government services which meet their needs?

And yet they have a vibrant local community which, given the right environment, is perfectly capable of organising joined-up government services. After all, they have already organised lottery funding for the village hall, run a small music festival, an annual agricultural show, and a Christmas pantomime for the children. There is an active branch of the Women’s Institute, a well-supported church, and numerous small groups providing a great deal of community child care, cultural activity, and informal welfare support.

The local community understands better than anyone what the priorities are, and are more strongly motivated to solve it than anyone else.

But it isn’t only in Ambridge that the problem of joined up government should be handed to those who care most.

Imagine a voluntary organisation dealing with disability. Who better understands the services which matter most to their clients, and the usability features that would make the biggest difference. Who is better placed to interface any special equipment? Given the right environment the voluntary sector would make a better job of improving access to e-government for special interest groups than any government department.

The same is true for any minority group, whether distinguished by ethnic background, language, geographic location, or special needs. If we really want an e-government environment that supports diversity, we must take the problem out of the hands of government.

And the same applies in the commercial world. Imagine a small business grappling with VAT, Corporation Tax, PAYE, Company house returns, and a raft of environmental, employment, transport, licensing and trading regulation specific to their industry. They are happy to pay an accountant to take care of paperwork because it is easier than learning how to deal with it themselves. Given the right environment there is a commercial opportunity for intermediaries to provide e-government services for business at no cost to the public. Instead of grumbling about excessive regulation the IOD, BCC and trade associations might better serve their members by joining up the government services that their members need.

To make this happen needs a framework which makes it possible for intermediaries to step in. This includes an architecture which disconnects back-office process from the user interface; and which supports common standards across different government agencies. The basis for al lthis is already in place.

It also needs government to create the space for intermediaries to step in. Rather than pressing local government and central agencies to join up services, and provide univeral access to every special interest group we should be actively discouraging them.

It needs an active programme to recruit and support a community of intermediaries in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

But above all it needs a recognition that accessing government services over the internet may have looked radical five years ago, but the impact is insignificant compared to the radical rethinking of the public service supply chain that technology makes possible.

Posted by Peter Reed on 01/10/04 at 9:14am
Categories · Across the Board
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We want to take e-enabled advice and services to the most needy

I am a Welfare Rights Caseworker, working with and advising the most vulnerable people in society. Before that I worked in a Law Centre. Whilst there I did not realise the huge number of people who are not getting the right advice, the extent of underclaiming and the huge difference the benefits can make to this (forgotten/unseen) section of society.

In my opinion:

1. Advisors need access to portable computers with technology to send info whilst during visits to service users homes.

2. This section of society do not have computers at home, and many would not know how to use a computer. Mobile vans with computers with big keyboards and other adjustments for disabled people should be made available with helpers on hand.

3. Voice activation and large print would make things easier for some.

Posted by a London-based adviser on 01/10/04 at 8:13am
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Ideal Government

Let's say what we want from e-enabled government. Let's observe government first-hand. Let's say "Wouldn't It Be Better If" (WIBBI). Become an ethnographer of bureaucracy today! It beats getting frustrated with public services.

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04 Oct 2004

Educational reach

When children need protection from their own history

What if the government had built Friends Reunited?

03 Oct 2004

Admin note - author instructions, temporary email problem

(offtopic) Question and/or suggestion for this site

02 Oct 2004

WFRC wants communication by rights for all

“Farmers want a one-stop shop…it’s like Bluewater out there”

01 Oct 2004

The Wired UK Manifesto, October 1996

An agenda for the ICT industry

Lashing together some threads

Get fit

Death of the Department

We want government-guaranteed national e-markets

We must take joined up e-government out of the hands of government

We want to take e-enabled advice and services to the most needy

Ideal Government

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04 Oct 2004

Educational reach

When children need protection from their own history

What if the government had built Friends Reunited?

03 Oct 2004

Admin note - author instructions, temporary email problem

(offtopic) Question and/or suggestion for this site

02 Oct 2004

WFRC wants communication by rights for all

“Farmers want a one-stop shop…it’s like Bluewater out there”

01 Oct 2004

The Wired UK Manifesto, October 1996

An agenda for the ICT industry

Lashing together some threads

Get fit

Death of the Department

We want government-guaranteed national e-markets

We must take joined up e-government out of the hands of government

We want to take e-enabled advice and services to the most needy

Ideal Government

Categories

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