local government – Page 13

Transformed by You evaluation

April 21, 2010

I wrote about the Transformed by You project, run jointly between Kent and Medway Councils, here. By all accounts it was a great event, and thanks to the great social reporting efforts of David Wilcox, we can all get a feel for how it went.

The evaluation of the process has been published openly, and makes for an interesting read:

Great that this stuff is being shared out in the open! You can follow further progress on the project, and innovation generally in Kent, on the iNews blog.

Innovation in government is a topic that I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about recently. More soon, when I get round to it.

Connected Generation 2010

April 15, 2010

Connected Generation 2010 is, in the words of chief cheerleader Tim Davies:

…a one-day conference exploring youth engagement and technology in 2010. Based on feedback from participants at recent training events, and on the positive response to the Beyond Twitter event we ran up in Wrexham last year, we’re trying a mixed Conference and Open Space format again – with a morning of top-quality input from speakers and a range of pre-planned workshops, followed with an afternoon of curated unConference, where delegates can set the agenda and direct the conversations.

It’s happening at The Watershed in Bristol on Friday, 7th May.

Some of the speakers include:

Amy Sample Ward – co author of ‘Social by Social and expert on the use of social media in non-profit contexts;
Katie Bacon – pioneer of digital youth work in Devon, and founder of Online Youth Outreach digital youth work training.
Joanne Jopling – project worker for the Gateshead Young Women’s Outreach Project
Kieron Kirkland – learning researcher at FutureLab, and lead for the Greater Expectations project
Chris Morgan – from the Communities 2.0 in Wales, talking about digital youth and community work.

Well worth signing up if you have any kind of interest in how technology can be used to engage with young people – even better value if you use the LPOOL discount code to get a tenner off the ticket price.

Using the places database

April 9, 2010

I was asked recently by a colleague for some information about the names and locations of local authorities in this country. I was able to respond quickly and usefully thanks to the places database, which sits on the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Here’s what I did, as a simple example of what you can do with this resource. We’re just going to produce a spreadsheet containing the names and contact information for local councils in England. I’m no expert on this stuff, but hopefully this demonstrates some of what is possible, and encourages folk to have a play.

First, go to http://www.places.communities.gov.uk/ in your web browser.

Scroll down and choose ‘download data by theme’:

Download data

On the next screen, we need to tell the system what information we want to extract through a number of steps. Here’s what steps 1-3 should look like for our example (click for a bigger version):

For step 1 select Current, step 2 select Key Facts, step 3 select Local Authority.

Two more questions to answer:

Step 4 choose Place Details, Step 5 leave start and end dates both as current.

Finally, there is a bit of a warning message – which I just ignore – and then the option to download the data as either an Excel spreadsheet or in CSV format:

Then just hit download, and your data will be saved to your computer. Dead easy.

Thanks to Martin Stone who first pointed this out to me.

I’d be interested to find out what uses other people have been putting this tool to.

Reconnecting public accountability

April 8, 2010

I like scrutiny – it was one of my first jobs in local government to help the process at a smallish borough council. The CfPS does a great job of supporting good practice in the area, and recently this is taking the form of providing advice and guidance around using online methods to engage people with the process.

Cannot find server: reconnecting public accountability is a recent publication looking into this area. The blurb says:

The Centre for Public Scrutiny has published a critical analysis of what internet communication technologies might mean for public accountability. Cannot find server looks at themes in public engagement, and democracy to establish whether emerging social media are likely to enhance or hinder accountability. In an environment where too few accounts of this subject matter adopt a critical position a balanced analysis of the issue was needed. By looking at examples (both hypothetical and real) this publication helps the reader to build an understanding of where social media should fit within a broader engagement strategy.

It’s well worth a read, and is a free download (PDF warning).

Great blogging on #localgovweb

March 30, 2010

Two great blog posts recently on the ever thorny issue of local government websites.

Firstly, Al Smith recounts his experience managing the refresh of Newcastle City Council‘s site. A remarkably honest and open appraisal of how it all went, and Al’s own role, it’s a great read and one for any local gov web manager to take a look at.

Secondly, Carl Haggerty – who is on blogging fire at the moment – has written a really thought provoking post on web strategy. He says:

What i think we need is a strategy for the web channel that actually talks about “Exploiting” the channel for business benefit and value creation and not a strategy that focuses on how we will build it, what technology we will use and what level of security we will apply. These are of course very important things but in my view should actually be contained within your organisations ICT Technical Strategies and not within the web strategy.

Great examples of blogging being used to share experience, knowledge and ideas. More of this, please.

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