Government culls old web sites ... limited blogging promised

While Dissident consultant Anthony Beaver notes with relish BBC news that the Government culls web sites ...

Hundreds of government websites are to be shut down "to make access to information easier" for people. Of 951 sites, only 26 will definitely stay, 551 will definitely close and hundreds more are expected to follow.

... the Hansard Society lets me know that their Interim report on the Government's Digital Dialogues initiative is available assessing pilots about how technology can support central government consultation. The report evaluated blogs, forums, surveys and webchats, and has lots of good sense on how to promote interaction online, as well as sensible conclusions:

- Online engagement activity is not a replacement for conventional offline methods. It should be used as a complement and is best placed with a multichannel engagement campaign;
- Blogs are suitable where engagement is ongoing over a long-term period. Forums are good for periodic, structured deliberation with large groups.
- Webchats are useful as one-off real-time events (but may be combined in a series or with other applications);
- Participant bases created around one exercise should be maintained and encouraged to take part in an ongoing dialogue at appropriate junctures around the policy cycle;
- Online engagement exercises should start small and should be scaled-up in response to demand;

The report treads carefully around issues of commitment and culture:

Over the course of this phase of Digital Dialogues, we have seen that a wide-range of policy areas is suitable for taking online. Policy teams have demonstrated their ability to adapt their public participation methods to an online medium. During the initiative they were able to interact closely with participants compared to before the exercises, when some were more used to a ‘stand-back and watch’ approach where participants were left to their own devices, or responsibility for engagement was handled externally. Nevertheless, confidence and desire do not equate to actual deliverable capacity, and it is clear that experience is needed when it comes to sustained participation and greater interaction with the public, particularly online.

... although it is fairly forthright about the blog of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It recognises the challenges of the experiment:

There are aspects of David Miliband’s blogging that have justified the criticism. The most important is that for reasons of inexperience and lack of time Miliband has not adequately established his blog’s presence online. There are very few links to other relevant blogs – either in the permanent ‘blog roll’ or in the posts. The Minister rarely interacts with the comments made in response to his posts, and does not visit other blogs to comment. Therefore, the Minister’s blog fails to exploit its potential as a node in the communicative network that blogging has created. It stands out because of its establishment associations and looks awkward next to its peers.
Redressing the inefficiencies presents the most pressing challenge to David Miliband and his fledgling blog. Success may bring a greater acceptance by bloggers and generate more general traffic amongst those who are not regular participants in the political process. However, this will require a team effort by the Minister and his departmental communications team, and it will be interesting to see how this will be viewed by evangelical bloggers and political opponents.

Further pilots are planned in the second phase, around more forums, chat and blogs, including one by the Food Standards Agency Chief Scientist Andrew Wadge. That could be interesting, with a dip the other day into Organics: what's the fuss about?

There was lots of weekend media coverage about organic food, promoted by Environment Secretary David Miliband’s comments about it being a ‘lifestyle choice’ with no hard evidence that it’s better.
The Agency's advice on organic food is often cited. Basically we’re neither for nor against it, and we're guided very much by what the science says. We recognise the important role it plays in providing choice for consumers, but the balance of current scientific evidence doesn’t support the view that it’s more nutritious or safer than conventional foods.

More please. On the other hand, Dissident Anthony is quite clear about cull of conventional sites:

For anyone even remotely connected to the public sector, as well as ordinary citizens, this can only be good news. The proliferation of webs sites across central government is a consequence of an entrenched attitude that every project or initiative should have a web site - in fact this was usually the first thing that project teams did once they had been handed funding. No thought was ever given to what would happen to the site once the project had completed and funding no longer available.This 'silo thinking' is endemic across the public sector, and created huge problems in being able to find relevant information - that could well be split across several sites. The fact that it's easy in web-land to provide links between sites and content hasn't occurred to many of the site owners. Removing out of date or irrelevant content is clearly a step in the right direction, and should remove some of the clutter from search engine results.

One would love to believe that the clutter of non-interactive sites being culled will be replaced by other more interactive projects informed by the Digital Dialogues initiatives. But somehow the style still seems out of sync with the field.  The Digital Dialogues report is a pdf download which makes it difficult to  quote, and impossible to comment. There is a foreword from the politician responsible, Bridget Prentice, MP Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, with fine words:

The Digital Dialogues interim report illustrates how public involvement in the policy development process can influence policy outcomes. I am encouraged by the positive findings of the report and I strongly support the continued practice of using digital means to promote public participation in policy development.

... but if you look at Bridget's own site you find on the front page an invitation to see the winners of her Xmas card competition. Christmas 2005 that is. We know our elected members are hard pressed, and we all lapse a bit in our blogging, but April 2006 seems a while for the last update.
Oh dear, slap my virtual wrist. Don't be critical without being constructive ... so here goes. How about a project blog for Digital Dialogues so we are kept up to date with developments and can, well, get involved. It can't be easy promoting interactive online Government projects when - as Anthony Beaver says - the tradition has been broadcast-mode.  I think Hansard Society and the DCA should get as much encouragement as possible from friends outside Government -  but to do that we need a way of joining in.
Update: the ruralalnet|uk I-See-T Project has just spent a year investigating the use of technology for collaboration in the voluntary and community sector - and now presents the findings on a blog, in sections with opportunities for commenting.  More later on the findings.

Comments

[Andrew Brown]

On Bridget's site, I happen to know (because I know her and some of the people that work for her) that she's in the middle of a major overhall of her site.

Not that this excuses the lack of updates, but it is (I hope) an indication that she knows that the current site isn't up to much.

I've been doing quite a lot of thinking about what politicians and local political parties websites should be like recently and think there's a whole load more they could be getting out of being online.

I'd suggest that parties (particularly at the local level) need to stop believing the press they get and recognise the strengths they have in being a persuader for better civic cultures. It's members of political parties that a big part of the civic glue, serving on school governing bodies and health boards, active in local charities, and of course the people who put themselves forward for elections to councils, regional bodies and parliament.

Party members are the only people who do these things, obviously, but they are an important component in making this work.

Celebrating this online would I believe help give those not involved in organised politics a better insight into what political parties are for.