Post in The big barrier to e-democracy

Feb 29 19:25 UTC

That's good coming from Blears! Local government, with a few exceptions,
hasn't had a problem with revolutionising services, its central
government that’s been lagging and we get tired of hearing it the other
way around.

I've spent the day chairing a meeting of the Yorkshire & Humber branch
of the Society for Information Technology Management (the British public
service IT managers body) focused on digital inclusion. It was lead by
several examples of good practice and then by an attempt to discover the
barriers - the conclusion was that the UK lacked a national agenda for
digital inclusion! We are potentially replicating the scandal of
e-government where nearly four hundred councils did their own thing in
different timescales but without the financial input!

We also have a problem of ownership of the agenda, which whilst not
being technology led has to be supported by it, so it requires all
involved parties from front-office to back-office to cooperate,
especially when some of them work under Whitehall rules. Again, if
Whitehall lags it drags everyone else back.

Blears also wants to see 100 pilots of participatory budgeting by end of
2008 but my small authority in the wild of Yorkshire has been doing this
for a few years now. The problem is that the concept is hard for the
public and its not something easily introduced in the tight annual cycle
of declaring Council Tax. But it is being done without Whitehalls
assistance, because if we waited for them, it'd never happen!

We know she's worked in local government, why does she now sound like
she hasn't a clue?