There’s a lot to spark interest and further discussion in this Kable summary of the New Local Government Network’s paper 21st Century Democracy: e-petitioning and local government.

Leaving aside the debate about e-petitioning as a method in itself, I thought there were two general points made in the paper that were worthy of further consideration…

Firstly, that ‘the paper identifies four key advantages for councils to introduce e-petitioning:

• Widening participation to include those who appear to be more disengaged - the young and the those who are less well-off;
• Enabling people to voice their opinions with methods accessible to them and to see the impact it has;
• Ensuring accountability and direct dialogue with representatives;
• Making information readily available and accessible.’

I hope this doesn’t sound too cynical but, being totally honest, how many of those are seen as ‘advantages for councils’… by councils themselves? Whilst each authority is different, I have to say we haven’t come across too many that consider ‘enabling people to voice their opinions with methods accessible to them and to see the impact it has’ advantageous to them as a council — and even ‘making information readily available and accessible’ is probably only seen as beneficial in the light of the Freedom of Information Act in the majority of cases.

I’m more than happy to be proved wrong on that one, though, and sincerely hope that local authorities are seeing the advantage, and not just the obligation, in e-participation initiatives!

Secondly, that ‘the paper also calls on the Audit Commission to reward councils who show commitment and innovation to e-petitioning through the new Comprehensive Area Assessment and for councils to use their own websites to encourage greater e-participation’. While, of course, there are particular nuanced pros and cons of implementing anything through such a formalised reward/threat mechanism, the principle of making e-participation a success criteria and trying to encourage an e-participatory culture is c ertainly laudable (and the cynical person from the paragraph above suspects it might be the most effective way to stir local authorities into life on this one).

If you feel I’m being overly harsh or if you’re similarly frustrated, feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think (we really are trying to get comments enabled soon).