Part two of a series of articles on the Conservative green paper on local government, which are also appearing on the Democratic Society blog. Section one of the green paper discusses local housing and economic growth. The Conservatives’ proposals are: enable local authorities to benefit financially when they deliver the housing that local people need; [...]
Posts under ‘Councillors’
Conservative Home promoting twittering councillors
In a welcome bit of political prodding (it always usually comes form civil servants or NGOs) Conservative Home is urging Tory councillors to use Twitter. You can see a detailed list of twittering councillors on Cllr Tweeps.
Shift Delete
Local decision-making should be less constrained by central government, and also more accountable to local people. We will encourage democratic innovations in local government, including pilots of the idea of elected mayors with executive powers in cities. David Cameron’s green paper Shift Control, published yesterday? No, the 1997 Labour manifesto, and if you want a [...]
Better than sitting in a draughty library, providing a surgery that no-one attends…
Here’s Wandsworth’s Councillor James Cousins on the value of interactivity for councillors: “What is surprising is not just how many local people were tweeting, but how many were eager to engage and use Twitter to communicate with their councillor. While I often sit in a draughty library with no-one attending my surgery it is quite [...]
Local government and social media
Ingrid Koehler wants to know what the Key questions about local government and social media are. Her list is: What are the greatest areas of potential benefit in councils using social media? How can councils support local communities and individuals in becoming digitally enabled and empowered? How can local and hyper-local social networks increase community [...]
Mayor culpa
Elected mayors. They’re a controversial topic in local government, with many councils and councillors staunchly opposed to them. Until recently, the creation of an elected mayor needed a public referendum – most of which have been lost following opposition by councillors. Now, a simple council decree can introduce one, but if councillors are opposed, that’s [...]
What central government thinks about local councillors
It’s Friday. Time for a bit of a laugh. This ‘Yes Minister’ clip provides a rough outline: And on the wider perception of councillors, here’s Vic & Bob’s take: Joking aside, if there is one thing that desperately needs rebranding, it’s the very idea of the Local Councillor.
2009 predictions from elsewhere (and one of my own)
My friend, former Hansard Society e-democracy watcher Ross Ferguson says: A local government will fall head-over-heels in love with the promise of eDemocracy and launch into an ambitious project to put digital front-and-centre of its democratic processes and service provision. It will be facilitated with next-generation municipal ICT and it will capture our imaginations but [...]
Local Referendums – coming to a town hall near you?
Well, we knew it was coming – here: “New proposals to make it easier to get local leaders to hold a referendum on their leadership structure, putting communities firmly in control of their town and council, has been published for consultation by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.” It is particularly interesting that these votes will be [...]
Fix My Street iPhone application
The very smart MySociety project developed Fix My Street a while back. Now you can post pictures to it by iPhone. There is no reason why councillors can’t be encouraged to be active users of this – and to ensure that everything that they post to it can be fed onto their personal web-pages. This [...]
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
