A simple summary from Steven L Clift about key ingredients for government websites if they are to help strengthen democracy:

The typical e-government experience is like walking into a barren room
with a small glass window, a singular experience to the exclusion of
other community members. There is no human face, just a one-way process
of paying your taxes, [...]

I do like the idea behind this new web service from the Department of Communities and Local Government which tells you about your Local Area Agreement.
Local Area Agreements (LAA) are negotiated between a local council (plus the local strategic partnership, like BeBirmingham) and central government. Together they create a list of key improvements [...]

After the suspension of a civil servant for blogging Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson has finally got some guidelines up to help civil servants join the online conversation. They are based on the civil service code and a big conversation which was encouraged by Tom on his blog and evolved into Richard Allan’s task [...]

On Tuesday I wrote this blog post about the Central Office of Information beginning a consultation on the use of social media and metadata in government. The “consultation” was first spotted by Emma Mulqueeny. This morning the press office e-mailed this response:
“The social media guidelines are aimed specifically at Civil Servants and any informal [...]

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Here’s a short film we made last week for Be Birmingham, the city’s recently revamped Local Strategic Partnership.
The film is a short piece which includes Dame Ellen MacArthur talking about the launch of the partnerships CO2 challenge for 2008 – that each of us [...]

I’m frowning at a consultation report published in March 2008 by the Charity Commission.

Public Benefit and the Advancement of Education March 2008 is the commissioners trying to clarify when an educational institution (private school) can or can’t claim charity status. However on page 18 they write:
There are two main aspects to educative merit or [...]

We can’t bridge the digital divide simply by providing internet access. Stepping across that divide comes when people use the internet to strengthen their social network and enrich their stock of social capital.

When web access is used as an alternative mechanism to passively consume media, adverts, opportunities to buy or even help from public [...]

I’ve just played the online consultation game from the Department of Children and Families. You can find it here www.dcsf.gov.uk/playspace. Sorry to the folk at the department if I’ve slightly skewed the result. I ticked the over 13 button (which is true) as were the rest of my answers.

I expected to [...]