04/11/2011 – Opening up democracy
Discussions of democracy have been much in the news of late. The Occupy protests, in London and around the world, have seen ordinary people taking to the streets to express dissatisfaction with their elected representatives. In Greece, the spectre of a referendum on their Euro bail-out package has caused internal strife as well as world-wide economic panic. Meanwhile, plans for electoral reform in the UK are being criticised for potentially diminishing, rather than enhancing, the pool of voters registered to vote.
Against this backdrop, I was pleased to attend an event at Portcullis House in Westminster on Parliament and online communities. Held as part of Parliament Week, which aims to raise awareness of Parliament and encourage engagement with the UK's democratic system and its institutions, the event bought together a diverse group of bloggers and discussion forum facilitators. We heard from a range of speakers about what work has taken place recently, before breaking into groups for further discussions.
Edward Wood, Director of Departmental Services in the UK Parliament, kicked off by highlighting that Parliament is not about government - rather it's function is supposed to be about holding government to account. In a nice piece of direct democracy, when I tweeted this quote, I had an immediate response that said "it's done precious little of that lately..."
This kind of cynicism is very interesting I think, because it drives to the roots of much of the discontent I noted above. Ordinary people feel that their voices are not being heard, that their opinions are not being counted, that they have little opportunity to influence the issues that affect them. So it was very encouraging to hear how the Commons Science and Technology Committee has been proactively working to secure "authentic voices" as it was put. In conjunction with the Student Room, they worked on two inquiries related to young people, to explain what was being examined and to garner their views.
This kind of targeted approach is something that I think should be used much more frequently. Our rightsnet website, for example, has a discussion forum which sees hundreds of welfare rights advisers visiting each month to discuss practice, procedure and policy. Whilst we do everything we can to reflect their views when we draft responses to government consultations and inquiries, it would be valued and appreciated if their views on welfare reform and legal aid reform were more proactively sought when policy is developed.
Yet the proof of the pudding is in the eating, to coin a phrase. So when 90-95% of the 5,000 responses received on legal aid reform strongly opposed what was being proposed to no visible effect, I do struggle to see how online engagement can overcome the feeling that many voices are still not being listened to. Notwithstanding this, I do support the ambitions to engage and inform communities of special interest in the democratic process, as this can only be a good thing.
Lasa loves the opportunities that technology can bring to charities and third sector organisations, to improve how they work with their clients and how they deliver services. So I warmly welcome the approach of the Parliament team in looking to explore how the internet can bring greater understanding of how this country works. "Knowledge is Power", said Francis Bacon many years ago, and I get the feeling that he would have approved of much of this work as well. Contrasting the new approach of his time in the development of science to that of the Middle Ages, he said:
"Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world."
I think we could say much the same about the politicians of today.
Posted by Terry Stokes