Two solutions and a problem
Posted by Ingrid Koehler on June 2, 2009
The Policy and Performance Community of Practice is a collection of over 2400 people working in the areas of policy and performance management and improvement in local government. Its home is on the IDeA’s Communities of Practice platform. Three recent discussions have got me thinking about two solutions and a problem.
Two solutions required:
1. Community of practice driven policy briefings
Policy officers in councils across the country prepare policy briefings for councillors and senior managers. These are generally updates about new legislation, white papers, announcements, etc from Central Government combined with regional and local news and council decisions from their own patch. A good portion of the policy news will be the same in every council, but the implications (the artful part of a policy briefing) will have different local flavour.
It seems to me that there are two approaches which could really help – saving time on the gathering of information and collation of reports – allowing more time for local analysis. The first which could help would be a kind of policy listening post based on RSS feeds from a variety of sources: central government, Audit Commission and other regulators, think tanks, the Local Government Association, the IDeA and news. It would need to be carefully constructed and it should have the ability to be adapted to local needs (i.e. adding local or regional sources of information).
The second would be a sort of real-time, user-generated repository of policy analysis. In many cases, the impact of policy developments on councils will be similar (though not identical). Policy officers could share their assessments online which others could then use and adapt. It might look something like Steph Gray’s delicious driven (social web bookmarking) collector of interesting examples of Government web 2.0 usage. Examples could kind of stream in and then policy folk could pull off the bits they need, while hopefully sharing their own views.
But policy officers would need a place to store their examples in the first place for that to work.
Like any kind of community of practice or user driven approach, there needs to be a sort of critical mass of users who are willing to share their analysis.
Original discussion here (sign-in required).
2. Public reporting of data and performance
There’s a greater expectation (and rightly so!) that councils will share performance information more accessibly. In many cases, this means web reporting of data and performance information. Some councils are already doing this. Adrian Barker collected some examples and we’re always looking for more. (See blog post here.)
We sorta got more examples through the CoP (see original discussion here – sign in required) and Antonio Irranca of CLG replied that examples were being gathered at esd-toolkit forums related to the Timely Information to Citizens project. But again, we need some sort of easy to use, easy to generate listing of examples so practitioners can see what’s possible and what other councils are doing or submit their own examples. Steph Gray’s collector seems like an ideal solution for that, too – perhaps even more suited to this. But it requires an automated site capable of capturing tagged examples (not a problem that can’t be solved in a few days), widespread use of social book-marking (sort of a problem) and promotion of the idea to relevant practitioners (this really shouldn’t be a problem, but I think it is.)
3. The problem: BLOCKING
John Heneghan, Policy Manager at Kirklees councils set up a UK Local Government Twitter group with the aim of making connections with practitioners who were interested in using social media to help councils engage with residents (and vice versa). And he shared that in the Policy and Performance CoP.
Fantastic. Great idea.
But most of the discussion that followed (see here – sign-in required) was about how council workers weren’t allowed access to social networking sites. I’m not sure what the rationale behind this is – some IT departments argue lack of bandwidth, but folks like Dave Briggs (a local gov digital enabler) would say it’s because they just don’t trust you.
<Sigh>
Yes, it’s possible to waste time on social networking sites at work. Yes, it’s possible to waste time at work chatting to colleagues, making personal calls or playing sudoku. You don’t need the Internet to waste time. But unlike playing sudoku, there are lots of really crucial business needs that can only be satisfied online. Information sharing. Research. Connecting with your communities. And so on…
I increasingly rely on my online network of colleagues to do my job more effectively. It’s a shame that some councils are cutting off their information and community based workers from an essential communications tool.
Please stop blocking.
Steph said
Come on, let’s crack the blocking problem. It’s more than an IT issue: we need to work on four fronts (or at least write a 1 page briefing for four types of people):
- IT Managers/CIOs: why the tools have a business application, and where we need their input to write technical policies which protect networks and data without preventing us doing our jobs
- HR Directors: how line managers should manage a Facebook generation (hint: by objectives)
- Directors of Communication: why digital engagement is transforming communications and marketing, and why they should care about their organisation’s smart use of it
- Heads of News: how we protect corporate reputation whilst not overwhelming Press Officers. Explain how they can monitor and respond appropriately, and the new opportunities to get coverage. Write rules for non-Comms people telling them when to involve the Press Office (tip: when their policy issue regularly makes it into the newspapers)
It’s not a big job to do, but since we’re not fighting on all fronts, IT managers are given the opportunity filling the vacuum with the big red ‘block’ switch.