Category: Local Government

Blogging for the BBC on hyperlocal websites.

This picture is of the BBC blog and links to it.

I’ve just started a blog for the BBC on hyperlocal websites.  It emerged from a meeting which Will Perrin organised between local Birmingham bloggers, the BBC’s Head of English Regions David Holdsworth and Laura Ellis – both of whom had been my bosses when I was at the Beeb.

We were discussing the best way for the BBC to connect with an understand the growing movement of very local, or hyperlocal, blogs.   I suggested at the time the BBC started blogging about these sites.  The why is pretty straightforward.

Something  I had learnt back in 2005 when I started the Grassroots Channel Podcast (which told the stories of active citizens in Birmingham) is how making media about people is a great way to establish relationships. Through interviewing people for a podcast two things happened, I established stronger relationships with them, but they also started connecting with each other.  The simple idea of understanding each other better and, to a degree, sharing a platform.

It was the case I was making last week at the new currency event.  Storytelling is about connecting people and we hope to help do that through this blog.  We will concentrate on the wider West Midlands region and the sort of blogs that interest me are outlined in the first post here. Besides taking an interest in the bloggers, what they write and why they do it, I’ll also be talking to a number of BBC newsrooms and production teams and introducing people.

I’m really looking forward to this.  I have a passion for both the BBC and for people who use various forms of social media for civic good.  I think they’re natural bedfellows.  We shall see.

Eric Pickles switches from local government targets to a list of data they should share

No great surprises in here, but a rough transcript of what Eric Pickles is saying:

  • We don’t need to waste time defining localism, it will strangle it.
  • Don’t salami slice, the old patterns of spencing wont return
  • Put everything under the spotlight and ask we do we really need the money to do.
  • Do we really need separate, planning, comms or chief executives?
  • Waste has shown a lack f respect towards the public and public money.
  • Greater transparency will revolutionise the way government works.
  • It will say to suppliers that the government is no longer there to be fleeced.
  • The public can judge public spending for themselves and perhaps public servants will take greater care when they know there will be an army of armchair auditors checking their working.
  • Much more radical:
  • Re-examine how every council works. There’s no point in wasting time on restructuring layers of authorities.
  • Birmingham is saving £430,000 a year sorting its own post
  • Worcestershire has counted 24 agencies working with young people and is looking to cut this down.
  • Tests – does it need to be done, does it provide value for money, are we the best people to be doing it.

  • It’s not my job to sit behind a desk like a puppet master pulling strings, instead I want to cut away those strings,
  • Hammersmith and Fulham came up with 100 bureaucratic burdens they are working against.
  • If councils working with residents want to set themselves goals that’s up to them, but National Targets mean councils are working ion this that matter to Whitehall. I’d rather councils tackle local issues.
  • A conservative estimate of the total for one local authority area is £7 million across 1500 indicators (including health policing etc)
  • Today I am scrapping Local Area Agreements.  It’s up to local councils to keep or dump the indicators as they see fit.
  • We will just have one list of every bit of data the government needs from you.
  • We will give council’s freedom, power and responsibility.  Stronger say on planning and a central role in the health service.
  • The localism bill will go further, through a general power of competence they will be able to do whatever they want to do.  I want to make sure councils can take charge of their own money, borrow against future income, pool budgets across the public sector to tackle social problems. We have freed up £1 billion of ring fenced money.
  • I don’t want council’s checking with me on everything, some councils feel they cant do anything without my permission. We need a new culture of action and decisiveness.
  • There is going to be a lot less money. I will make sure that you have what you need to tackle problems with new powers.  Local Governments natural instinct is to use innovation to adapt very quickly, most of the smart way to deal with deprivation or housing comes through local government.

See also www.communities.gov.uk/newsstories/localgovernment/1740490

Introducing social media surgeries – notes from Hyperlocal Govcamp West Midlands

hyperwm 6

Last Wednesday I spent a great afternoon at Hyperlocal Govcamp West Midlands, an event in Walsall bringing together a mix of local government officials, hyperlocal bloggers and people interested in open data.

I ran a session introducing social media surgeries for voluntary and community groups, looking at how surgeries can help active citizens tell stories and collaborate online.

The session was slanted towards encouraging people to run their own surgeries and to make use of socialmediasurgery.com to promote, manage and evaluate events.

Read more

Beyond 2010 – go if you can.

It isn’t often that you get key thinkers in one place at just the right time, but that’s what’s happening in a couple of weeks (20 – 21st October) here in Birmingham.

Charles Leadbeater, the author of We Think, Richard Allan of Facebook, Professor Nigel Shadbolt of Data.gov.uk are just some of the remarkable people who are going to speak at Beyond 2010, an ambitious 2 days that will “show you how to deliver more for less with digital technologies”.

That we are hosting such people is one measure that Birmingham – and much of the rest of the West Midlands – really is ahead of other places when it comes to digital media and civic good. I’ll be talking about just that, sharing a platform  with Will Perrin, Karen Cheney and Robert Hardy to talk about the connection between digital technology and Big Society.

As Glyn Evans from Birmingham City Council puts it…

It is not the time to wait and see what happens -we need to be more proactive and make sure that we are leading the debate about how to realise the efficiencies and make the reforms to manage the cuts most effectively.

It may sound like I’m on commission.  I’m not, although you get a discount if you use this link.

I had some time at the Conservative Party Conference last week and learnt a great deal from the people I met. Whatever bit of the public sector you are from,  new ideas are where your future lies. Digital Birmingham has been planning this for a year: it just happens to be the right thing at the right time.