Yesterday I gave a talk to a group of staff at DG Connect in Brussels, as part of their Tuesday Conversations series, talking about Open Policy in the UK and projects such as NHS Citizen. Thanks to Prabhat Agarwal and
Open Policymaking for Health: NHS Citizen
The Government are creating a Citizen Assembly within NHS England, so that health policy can be shaped and guided by citizens’ voice. NHS Citizen will be a complete system that will listen to citizens via online and offline channels, curate conversation
Social listening in government – practical uses
We live in a data world and the predicted rate of growth is staggering. 73% of adults in Great Britain access the Internet every day, 53% of them do so using a mobile phone. The expectations of networked publics are
Ethical considerations for government in social listening
There’s been a fair amount of discussion about the use of ‘social listening’ over the past few months, particularly surrounding the relationship between people’s use of Internet tools, the corresponding institutional capability through big data and advanced analytics to mine
What’s in a name, #openpolicy?
I’m in the very grand surroundings of the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, about to run a workshop on open policy making for the senior BIS leadership team. However, you get the pre-release version… I’ve been thinking about the term “open
What is the place of ‘Digital’ in Open Policy Making?
Digital tools are often mentioned as key to opening up policy making. After all, they provide policy makers with powerful new ways of connecting with the people they serve. But, as Simon Burall, Director of Involve, made clear to the
BIS Digital Engagement Case Study Series: Updating and simplifying consumer rights | digital@BIS
A great write-up of an interesting open policymaking collaboration between teams at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, opening up a policy consultation about consumer rights to a wider audience through clear language, active outreach and straightforward methods to
Checklist for an ideal digital policy engagement campaign
This post, by Stephen Hale of the Department of Health, originally appeared on his Health Conversations blog. A few weeks ago, I sat down with some of the DH digital team, to talk about digital policy engagement, and how we would like
Why Policymakers Ignore Evidence
Great post here (from just before the summer break) on the twelve reasons why politicians don’t listen to evidence, written by Gerry Stoker at Southampton. Snippet here, but go and read the post for the list. One common rationalization offered
5/20? Depth options for consultations
I like this consultation by the Italian government, on constitutional reform. It’s a technical issue, so they’ve provided two options – a five minute questionnaire, and a twenty minute one. The five minute questionnaire says: “You don’t need to be