Creating Community Conversations - Gallomanor

Nine New Authorities

Earlier this week the DCLG announced the results of the bids for unitary status that had been made earlier in the year by many councils up and down the country.

The successful bids are:

Councils Submitting  Proposals	Proposed unitary structure
Bedford Borough Council	Bedford Unitary
Chester City Council	2 Unitary Cheshire
Cornwall County Council	County Unitary
Durham County Council	County Unitary
Exeter City Council	Exeter Unitary
Ipswich Borough Council	Ipswich Unitary
Northumberland County Council	County Unitary
Shropshire County Council	County Unitary
Wiltshire County Council	County Unitary

I don't want to get into the rights and wrongs of the move.  The drivers seem to be efficiency and cost savings and that is not our bag.  One observation I will make is that on the whole County Councillors that we deal with tend to be more corporate, more professional and less personal than the District Councillors we deal with (Unitary and Metropolitan's are a mixed bag).  This is not a criticism, nor unexpected, but I would advise councillors in the new County Unitaries not to lose the personality and time for constituents that District Councillors seemed to have.

On another aspect I am intrigued how Bedfordshire, Devon, and Suffolk will deal with their County Halls.  I see Nottinghamshire craftily ensured that their County Hall is just south of the Trent in their own authority, but Leicestershire seem to remain in the Leicester unitary authority.

Councillor Personality Types

The IDeA have published a report on the personality types of councillors and how they differ from the general population (hat-tip Mike at OpenEye).

Councillors are more likely to be extravert (sic - IDeA are obviously followers of Jung) – 68 per cent compared to the general population’s 52 per cent – and less likely to be introvert than the population as a whole. That is, they are more at home being out and about and engaging in face-to-face conversations with large numbers of people. They will tend to have a broad range of interests and be energised by the cut and thrust of interaction.

Well, there's a surprise, but it gets better...

Councillors will be more likely to take a hard objective look at the facts and generally will not be ruled by their emotions. They would generally be interested in reaching a solution that was objective and where the ‘business case’ stacked up while the majority of the population would be more concerned with the effect a decision had on people – councillors 67 per cent compared to the population’s 46 per cent.

This is all obviously true and not some puff written to make councillors look good.  I guess that is why "a hard objective look at the facts" by most councillors leads to consensus decision-making across political parties.

I'm also sure that the Myers-Briggs test are accurate and that nobody would answer them with the personality they think they should have rather than perfectly objectively.  I vaguely recall a test from my undergraduate days that categorised your personality from Rock to Plastic depending on how you shaped your persona to the people and environment around you.  If I remember correctly Rob, the Rock, went into corporate banking and Plastic Graeme spent a few years on a PhD before training as a psychologist.  No councillors in our group though.

Who's playing this year?

There's still several months to go before Local Democracy Week and the final deadline for signing up for I'm a Councillor, Get me out of Here!, but we've got a record-breaking 24 councils signed up so far - a lot of them returners from last year, who we're glad to have back.

It tends to go a bit quieter now, for a couple of months - schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland have broken up already, schools in England and Wales are about to - until a rush of new sign ups after the summer holidays. And of course there's certain people (hello Alan!) who we know will be phoning us on the 10th of September to make the deadline with a minute to spare, but as they are such loves we forgive them.

Councils already signed up for I'm a Councillor 2007

Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council
Bury Metropolitan Borough Council
Caerphilly County Borough Council
Cambridge City Council
Canterbury City Council
Cherwell District Council
City & County of Swansea
Colchester Borough Council
Congleton Borough Council
Coventry City Council
Craigavon Borough Council
Dumfries & Galloway Council
Mansfield District Council
Middlesbrough Borough Council
Mole Valley District Council
Newry and Mourne District Council
Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council
Oxford City Council
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
Shropshire County Council
Spelthorne Borough Council
Teesdale District Council
Vale of Glamorgan Council
Waverley Borough Council

If you're a teacher (especially of citizenship) or youth participation worker in one of these council areas, you can look forward to two weeks of getting your young people talking to councillors, influencing local politics and having fun. If you live in other council areas, you can't. Yet. I reckon you should get onto your council and hassle them about why they aren't involved (Do they hate democracy? Don't they care about young people?). But don't tell them I sent you.

Bit of a B**ls up

It seems as though people emailing schools might have some trouble getting through according to Tony Attwood, moderator of the Education Marketing news group.

An update he sent about changes in Government were blocked by a number of school filter systems because it contained "a forbidden word".

What, or rather who, was causing the problems?  Of course it was Ed Balls, the Secretary of State at the new DCFS.

**It reminds me of the problem ITV.com once had when running online chats with players from a certain North London club.  You couldn't post anything that contained arse.**

Phishy business

I received this email this morning from BusinessLink:

From: alerts@businesslink.gov.uk [mailto:alerts@businesslink.gov.uk]
Sent: 09 July 2007 11:07
To: shane@gallomanor.com
Subject: Business Link has an improved registration system - please upgrade

Dear registered user

As we add new interactive services to our website, we upgrade our security framework to ensure your information is always safe. We recently introduced a new registration system with increased security:

Please upgrade your account

The process will take under five minutes. Have a pen and paper ready to record your new details.

Thank you for using our website.
The Business Link team

-----------------------------------------------------------

Other actions

Follow this link to log in
Follow this link to see our recently updated Privacy policy
Follow this link to cancel email alerts (unsubscribe)

-----------------------------------------------------------

Do you think they tried especially hard to make it look like a phishing attack?

"Dear registered user"    -    If I am a registered user why don't you know my name?
"Please upgrade your account"    -    Why hide the link?  Let it be seen so we can trust it.
"The Business Link team"    -    No name.  Why not?  What are you hiding?

The irony is that it is a genuine attempt to get me to upgrade to the secure Government Gateway system, but it does look as though BusinessLink have based their email style on some rather dodgy emails.

What you thought you knew may be wrong

I've come across some recent research by Nielsen/Netratings about who's active online.

Contrary to lazy stereotypes about nerdy teenage boys, they find that now the most prevalent group online in the UK are women aged 18-34 (a group I sadly find myself no longer a member of). And in fact 25% of online Britons are 50 or over (there are 1.7 times as many 50+ as under 18s online) - my Dad is one of these silver surfers and he spends more time online than I do, so that rings true for me. They also find that overall there is a pretty even split (51.5% vs 48.5%) between men and women.

I think this gives the lie to the idea that e-services only connect with young males. And I do wonder if the explosion in social networking sites, etc, has contributed to (or is a symptom of?) this feminization of the internet. In a way these stats are not surprising at all - the internet is now obviously so much bigger than l33t-speak and usenet. However, this research doesn't say anything about socio-economic groups, levels of education or speakers of other languages.

As I say, e-services are no longer confined to the groups people might lazily think, but it doesn't mean they are available to all. Remember kids, e-democracy  can contribute to across-the-board civic engagement only as part of a balanced democratic diet.

Rosling rolls on

Hans Rosling has presented at TED again.  More statistics, more original views of world poverty and development and an extraordinary way to finish a presentation.

It is well worth spending 20 minutes watching.

(Hat tip:  Andrew Brown)

Consultation consultation

The Cabinet Office launched a consultation on consultation a couple of weeks ago and I've finally made it through the document - Effective Consultation: asking the right questions, asking the right, people, listening to the answers.

My main feeling is that it really lacks ambition and I suspect this reflects the broad nature of consultation that it needs to cover.  In 33 pages the document focuses on the first criteria of the current consultation code which is to recommend consultations last 12 weeks.

It asks 12 questions for which they are looking answers and sets out three options for consideration. 

Option One:   Written Consultation plus one other method
Option Two:    A code of practice with a fast track procedure
Option Three:   A principles based approach

Astonishingly in the pros and cons for Option Three they reckon a "possible con" is that a "change of culture required across Government".  Surely if they recognise (like the High Court did) that if consultation is not working then a change of culture is required.  Or do they truly believe that the code is holding the Government back rather than the lack of desire to consult.

It isn't exactly a new problem.  Alan Clark bemoaned the need for consultation with Trade Unions whilst at the Department for Employment.  We hear tales of clients being asked to find young people to give feedback on campaigns in the week before they go live (so what happens if the young people find it doesn't work?).  Ministers talk of consultation on national radio as a selling exercise.

Unless the culture changes so that civil servants and ministers understand and believe that effective consultation will lead to better decision making then the bare minimum will continue to be done.

The range of consultations that Government needs to perform is too broad for a six point code of practice.  It should be based on principles that help deliver a change of culture.

I'm about to Have my Say online and I hope you'll do the same.