Dave

We need more councillors, not less

The MJ reports on Buckinghamshire County Council’s successful bid to reduce the number of members elected to it, from 57 to 49, in the name of cost cutting.

County deputy leader Bill Chapple said: ‘I’m delighted the commission is taking our proposals forward. We are living in a time of austerity when tough decisions have to be taken, and in making these proposals members are supporting the cost saving process.’

Drawing up new divisional boundaries will take account of an average 7,750 voters to each member, 1,050 below the national average. Mr Chapple said the revised ratio would maintain a ‘good democratic representation for the electorate, and save £100,000 a year.

Not commenting specifically on this example, but I think that, in general, we need more councillors, not less.

I mentioned my reasons in an earlier post. Basically, we have too few people doing too much, and a rethink about the role of the elected member is needed if we are to attract more people to get involved.

Cllr James Cousins argued persuasively on Twitter that if councillors took a more strategic view on issues, rather than getting bogged down in operational stuff, they would then be able to do better with fewer numbers.

It’s certainly a view I have sympathy with. Having been a member services officer in a previous life, I have far too many memories of trying to coax from councillors their views on a strategic report, rather than just having typos pointed out to me.

However, I think the thought of spending hour upon hour in town hall meetings and reading countless numbers of reports is still going to put off a large number of people getting involved.

As well as more councillors, we need better councillors. People with drive and ambition, people passionate about issues with fresh perspectives and different attitudes and cultures. Not only will this make council chambers more representative but it ought to make them better at what they do.

But these people – dynamic types with ideas and enthusiasm – are generally pretty busy being successful at other things. They don’t have a lot of time. Being a councillor right now – even if you take the strategic outlook Cllr Cousins encourages – takes up a lot of time, especially if you want to do it properly.

So rather than just having one or two representatives per ward, let’s have have a few more. Many as many as five or even ten for the bigger ones. These councillors split the work between them, taking on as much as they have time for and preferably the bits they are good at, or at least knowledgeable about.

They work together collaboratively – which would bring in the most culture change, especially where more than one political party is represented. Elections would certainly be very different affairs – but then I would argue that local elections are dominated by either local personality or national politics and policy – rather than specific local policy. In fact it might be that the party system loses its relevance in the local context.

This is, as always from me, half baked thinking. I’ve no doubt that there are stacks of reasons why this is a dumb idea. But I’ve never one been tempted to stand as a councillor, having seen the stresses and workloads it brings. Given the option to be involved, but sharing the effort with others, I might change my mind.

Bookmarks for December 30th through January 9th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to.

You can find all my bookmarks on Delicious. There is also even more stuff on my shared Google Reader page.

You can also see all the videos I think are worth watching at my video scrapbook.

The net delusion

The Net Delusion by Evgeny Morozov looks like it will be useful and interesting reading for those interested in the internet and its effects on politics and democracy, providing something of an alternative (thanks to Dom for the wording advice) view.

From The Observer‘s review:

Morozov, a young Belarusian-born writer and researcher now based in the US, doesn’t mince his words. But The Net Delusion is considerably more than an assault on political rhetoric; for, it argues, behind many of the fine words recently spoken in praise of technology lies a combination of utopianism and ignorance that grossly misrepresents the internet’s political role and potentials. Unless we are very careful, he suggests, the democratising power of new media will in fact bring not democracy and freedom, but the entrenchment of authoritarian regimes.

I’ve ordered the book for my Kindle and will report back once I get round to reading it.

What is also very tempting is that Morozov will be speaking at the RSA on the 20th January, on the topic of ‘The Future of WikiLeaks’ (thanks to Catherine Howe for the tip off).

Here’s the blurb:

Morozov believes that WikiLeaks currently stands at a crossroads: one route ahead would see a radical global network systematically challenging those in power – governments and companies alike – just for the sake of undermining “the system”. The current quest for transparency could soon become an exercise in anger, one leak at a time.

Alternatively, WikiLeaks could continue moving in the more sensible direction that, in some ways, it is already on: collaborating with traditional media, redacting sensitive files, and offering those in a position to know about potential victims of releases the chance to vet the data.

It is a choice between WikiLeaks becoming a new Red Brigade, or a new Transparency International. And, argues Morozov, forcing Mr Assange to go down the former route would have far more disastrous implications for American interests than anything revealed by “cable-gate”.

I’d love to attend and hopefully my schedule will allow it!

The Read/Write Organisation

As mentioned in a previous post, I’m just putting the finishing touches to a handbook on the topic of using social technology behind the firewall to make an organisation more interactive, collaborative, better at learning, and that sort of thing.

I’m quite proud of the first line in it:

Has there ever been an intranet that didn’t suck?

We haven’t decided yet just how it is going to be published, other than giving it to customers as part of projects we are working on, but I’m sure it will be available in some form to everyone in the near future.

As a taster for what’s included, here’s a brief outline of the contents. If you’re interested in finding out more, or would like to get hold of it once it is finished, do let me know in the comments or by email.

  1. Introduction
  2. Why this matters
    • Talking about change
    • Learning and knowledge
    • Managing talent
    • Working smarter
    • Innovating
  3. The toolkit
    • Networking
    • Status updates
    • Discussion
    • Collaborative authoring
    • Blogging
    • Resource sharing
    • Idea sharing
    • Note taking
    • Mashing up data
    • Project collaboration
  4. Approaches to implementation
    • Cobbling free stuff
    • Off the shelf
    • Roll your own
    • Use what you have
  5. Culture and the invisible architecture
    • People, process and technology
    • The importance of workflow
    • Wide and shallow, or narrow and deep?
  6. Governance and risk
    • Strategy and policy
    • Training
    • What are the risks?
    • Mitigation
  7. Summary and next steps
  8. Further reading and resources

The victory of the app store?

I just downloaded the latest update to Apple’s computer operating system, Mac OSX, which brings with it an app store, like the sort on your mobile phone, or iPad.

It means that I can browse for, pay for (if necessary) and download software for my computer without having to search the web for it, then do another search for reviews to make sure it’s any good, etc.

There are clear advantages for the consumer – but also for the smaller developers of apps who can now get a shop window on people’s desktops.

As Adrian Short noted on Twitter, there are cost savings to using the app store as compared to, say, buying software on Amazon:

I note that the next version of Windows, 8, will also feature an app store.

This is addition to the web browser based app store that Google have released for Chrome, which I blogged about last year.

App stores aren’t new, and originated on the desktop with the software repositories on Linux systems. But it certainly seems to be a concept that is now reaching the mainstream.

There are different models for app stores, with a principle difference being how open they are. Apple, for example, curate theirs with a iron fist, only allowing apps through which meet their stringent criteria for quality and usability.

The Android store, on the other hand, is an apparently lawless place, with many apps of dubious provenance and quality.

A further interesting development is the Amazon app store for Android – a third party creating its own app store for someone else’s platform!

It will be interesting to see what wins – sheer number of available apps, or better curation through central control? I suspect the latter as user experience ought to be key.

What about public services?

Should there be an app store for government? There are two potential scenarios here.

Firstly an app store for public sector workers to use to get applications onto their work computers (or perhaps just their web browsers in the Chrome model). A trusted source of apps to give people greater flexibility in terms of what they can use on their computers.

The advantages of this are considerable. No more pleading of the IT department to let you install Tweetdeck. No more finding that Evernote is blocked. Not sure how likely it is, though.

The second model would be to provide a store for apps for non government people to use to interact with public services.

There would be a number of things that needed to be worked out here, including ensuring apps were available on a range of platforms and devices.

Also, who would run it? I recall David Wilcox’s ideas for a social app store as being a centrally-located but not controlled place where civically minded digital bits and bobs could be used by others to make their place a bit better.

I still like this idea a lot – decentralised, government able to take part and contribute but not own, useful and hopefully not requiring vast amounts of money to build and run.

I’d certainly be interested in others’ views on where an app store might fit into public services, what it would look like and how it could work.

Update: Just come across this interesting post from Stephen O’Grady which is well worth a read: Who’s Going to Build the App Store for the Enterprise?

Update 2: How could I forget? The Knowledge Hub will have an app store in it.

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