Category: Local Government

Public toilets and public interest and what it means for scrutiny

It was a toilet a bit like this, just without the sign. By Phinphonephotos on Flickr

This weekend I’ve had my head stuck on working out what I can do next on the digital scrutiny project. And then I remembered a toilet.

I used to be a local reporter in north London. Each week, after we’d put the paper to bed, I’d walk round my ‘patch’. It was a picturesque place called Highgate. I’d often need what one might euphemistically refer to as a ‘comfort break’. There was only one public toilet in the middle of Highgate Village, so it became a er, regular calling point.

Sadly for me, it didn’t take all that long before the local council announced its closure as part of a series of budget cuts. This led to a few protests from locals who were unhappy to be losing a treasured local service, but no one seemed to think it was that interesting a local newspaper story.

A bit of a story I and another reporter wrote about the toilet, taken from teh Ham&High website.

Well, that is apart from me. I was enraged. My own personal pit stop had been taken away. Where would I be going to the toilet now? I furiously filed story after story about the loo closure. I think at one stage I got the nickname ‘toilet boy’. I even filed a Freedom of Information request asking for any correspondence about the lost loo.

Splash
The mickey-taking, however, stopped when my toilet-based Freedom of Information request got a reply from the council. Contained in a bundle of papers was a gem: a letter from the councillor in charge of Camden Council‘s environment department pleading with Mr Livingstone to give him the money needed to keep the toilet open, for fear its closure would hurt his chances of being re-elected. It made that week’s splash, if you’ll pardon the appalling pun.

Flushed with pride
I was obviously chuffed: a story I’d chosen to work on that others felt wasn’t important had ended up being quite, well a little bit, important. The councillor did lose the next election – along with quite a few other Labour councillors. The loo earned a reprieve, when the new council was elected and, under the name Pond Squre, is still in the list of Camden Council loos.

But, in truth, I didn’t deserve that much praise. I’d only pursued the story because it mattered to me. Its closure was a pain in the arse and I was annoyed. The moral of the tale, of course, is that it doesn’t take much at all to find out what’s going on, if you care and ask the right questions.

Bog standard
Sadly, local reporters are rarely the people who can do this stuff. They have to worry about deadlines, filling pages of copy and often don’t even live in the area they report on (I didn’t). That doesn’t mean they can’t do important work, but it’s citizens, the people affected, who need to take the lead, because it really matters to them.

So the next bit of the project will be to try to isolate a question – almost certainly about swimming pools on Where Can We Swim? – and pursue it with similar vigour to the toilet issue. I’ll have to care about it, but – importantly – I need to find others who do, too. There are a few that spring to mind – not least whether Birmingham really needs a 50m pool – but I’ll be trying very hard, very soon to work out what it is. Then it’s a matter of applying the skills I’m picking up through the project to see just how well this sort of stuff can work.

The report on birmingham.gov.uk is published

I’m sitting in Leeds just put the finishing touches to my speech for the Local Government Communications conference tomorrow: “Collaboration with citizens via digital technology”.  It’s amazing what you picking when sitting around.

First of all congratulations to Birmingham City Council for winning a very deserved silver in tonight’s Reputations award here for the effort that has gone into Birminghamnewsroom blog and a gold (along with the local pcts) for the Be active campaign (free swimming etc).
The theme of the conference is “Better for Less” so it’s also a very good time and place to find the report on the creation of the new Birmingham City Council website, the one that Help Me Investigate (I’m a co owner of HMI) revealed, through a Freedom of Information Request to the City Council,  had cost a “currently approved spend” of £2.8 million pounds. The same site which spurred on Birmingham folk to produce the ground breaking BCCDIY.

Here is the executive summary of the report, copied verbatim below.  You can find the pdf here, the recommendations (many) here and the information briefing here.

Update: I’m told the link to the pdf’s dont work (after all they are stored on birmingham.gov.uk.  To get at them

* http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/democracy/Pages/Index.aspx

* Set 1st drop down, ‘Meeting Body Type’, to ‘Executive’

* Set 2nd  drop down, ‘Meeting Body’ to ‘Deputy Leader’

* Set both dates to ’24/05/2010′

* Hit “Go”

* Select ‘Deputy Leader’

* Select ‘Information Briefing Web CMS Project’

There – that was easy – what a brilliant system, worth every penny.

End of update

The Executive summary says:

This was a complex project involving numerous departments, personnel and suppliers over five years. The project was all about enabling BCC to respond and adapt to the opportunities provided by the web as BCC moves forward with programmes intended to deliver major benefits internally and to all stakeholders, especially the citizens of Birmingham. All comments below should be read within this context.

1.2 There were governance and management challenges throughout this project over the last five years. Many respondents felt there was a lack of a clear and robust command and control structure, which contributed to delays and overruns. Whilst these issues have started to be addressed in the last twelve months, we nevertheless recommend a simplified and well-communicated management system for the web going forward, consisting of a Web Services Director/senior manager, a Web Manager responsible day-to-day, a more inclusive Web Steering Group, and tighter financial control.

1.3 It was generally agreed that web project management in future needs to be applied at a more senior level within BCC and Service Birmingham. The web as a whole should be seen as the pivotal channel that it is and must have a higher profile at Executive level in BCC. It was also felt that in future web projects should be service-led rather than technology-led.

1.4 Change management – in respect of both personnel and specifications – will improve if a senior project manager is in place at all times. It was generally agreed that ineffective change management contributed to the delays on this project.

1.5 Auditing and risk management – audits were performed professionally but deadlines on the project were consistently missed despite the reports of Birmingham Audit. Key risks which are identified must be given more priority. It is suggested that predicted deadlines then need to be revised with a contingency factor and promised actions for rectification must be monitored and delivered.

1.6 Financial control will be better exercised with the nomination of a dedicated project accountant, in line with best practice. All new work requested by the proposed Web Steering Group must be costed in detail and signed off from a ‘user needs’ perspective prior to sign-off by Finance and work being carried out.

1.7 The new website did not cost £2.8m as is widely reported. This figure includes many other major items which were involved in the project apart from the website and it is important that this continues to be communicated to the citizens of Birmingham, directly and via the local press.
Final Report – Web CMS Review – 03 03 10.doc Page 4/64
Web CMS Project Post Implementation Review – Final Report
February 2010

1.8 During the last two years, the Project Sponsor undertook negotiations with Service Birmingham regarding additional claimed costs by Service Birmingham on this project. It is stated by BCC that the outcome of these negotiations resulted in reductions of over £900,000 in these additional costs.

1.9 The site itself now requires all remaining content to be uploaded and we feel that it also requires a look more in keeping with the vibrant city which Birmingham is. Navigation and design could be improved as part of this process.

1.10 It is widely believed by BCC personnel that the new Content Management System (CMS) – which empowers individuals to upload content to the website and intranet – requires further work before it can be said to function effectively for its users. There are questions over the extent to which the FatWire CMS system was customised unnecessarily. The system is currently viewed as unstable by the BCC Web Team and requires remedial action.

1.11 To serve everyone, BCC’s website must be fully accessible and must also comply with the Disability Discrimination Act. Major improvements have been made but key BCC personnel believe that more still needs to be done before the Council’s stated policy is achieved. This is an action on both BCC and Service Birmingham.

1.12 With the exception of the CMS, the new website is functional and sits on an improved platform. As with all website launches, there remains work to be done to improve it and this will be a gradual and iterative process over the coming months for BCC and Service Birmingham.

1.13 The major objectives in support of the ‘Customer First’ and ‘Excellence in People Management’ Business Transformation Programmes have not yet been delivered but are expected within the month. When delivered, it is believed that these will contribute to the significant savings predicted from within business transformation.
Final Report – Web CMS Review – 03 03 10.doc Page 5/64

The report appears to have been in the system since March. It seems to be saying we could have done better and need to take more control over the web, but overall the millions (?) were well enough spent, even though our content management system ain’t up to much. What are you thoughts?

"Is that on google or the internet?"

Thursday saw me leading a lunchtime session on social media for people who work at Advantage West Midlands.   I’d been invited by the Prospect Trade Union as part of the National Learning at Work Week.

It wasn’t my normal audience – that would be communicators, policy makers, senior officers, politicians perhaps data people. This group just had a lunchtime spare with a mind to learn something new. Curious and hungry and unaware they were about to receive the full bore of my enthusiasm for the web and civic engagement.

Questions questions

Loads of question followed – good simple straight forward ones about how things work, privacy, why you would bother.  The sort of questions we’re used to being asked at social media surgeries.   So a group refreshingly happy to ask the basics.

One really made me stop and think: “Is that on Google or the internet?”.

I was stumped for a moment.  It felt like a cartoon character has just looked up at me from a drawing and asked me to explain the world of 3 dimensions.

It’s a perfectly reasonable one mind (all questions are).  “You can find it through Google or you can go straight to the web page using the web address,”  I tried to explain, adding:  “they’re  all on the internet” to a rather puzzled frown.

It happened to be Silver Surfers this week.   I’m not keen on the idea myself but marketing minds often feel it is working and perhaps that question explains the need.

Remember the basics

If even the concept of the world wide web is still slippery for some (hence the question) how do we describe this fundamental shift in information and relationships for those who have yet to grasp it?   So I asked twitter this question:

I’m struggling for an analogy to explain the Internet to people who’ve only ever known libraries and radio etc.  any thoughts?

and these are your generous answers in the order they arrived:

parboo it’s like a library, all on… Nope, I can see why you’re struggling 😉 how’s you n yours?  (fine thanks)  ( click here for parboo’s blog)

citizensheep I’m struggling to have any thoughts at all at the moment. I’ll have a think though.  (Citizensheep is Michael Grimes and his blog shows that it’s always worth waiting for his thoughts)

josiefraser @podnosh Internet like a highway apparently http://u.nu/3dvfa if you say super highway it makes it a bit more ziggy stardust. So maybe don’t.  ( Josie’s blog)

steve_nicholls @podnosh i think @parboo was on to it there. A big reference book where instead of skimming the index, you type it in?

pauljonlevy @podnosh Like ceefax but better? You off timetravelng? LIke everybook or radio programme in the world on air at the same time?

bounder @podnosh CB Radio with librarians 😉 ?  (Jon’s blog)

redmamba @podnosh brain ?

cyberdoyle @podnosh tell them its libraries and radio on rocket fuel. similar but faster. and on tap. available on demand. if you can get a connection.

peteashton @podnosh probably no help but it’s both larger and smaller than a library. 😉 (Pete’s blog)

natashacarlish @podnosh it’s like all the books and all the radio and a whole lot more inside a tvscreen which you can access all the time

danslee @podnosh Internet? It’s like having a selection of really good books delivered to your desk. At the click of a button #librarywebanalogy (some of the stuff Dan blogs about)

red_annie @podnosh the Internet is what happened when the library, supermarket, post office, radio and tv got squished into a portable box.  (Annie’s blog)

katehughes @podnosh imagine a library so big it has all the books in the world, then imagine that instead of books, it is filled with knowledge, then imagine instead of aisles and the dewey decimal system, the information comes to you instantly and every piece of infinite information is attached to each other so you can find whatever you want from wherever you start. I love the internet. http://tl.gd/1e1lo5 (By the way Kate is cheating – she uses tweetlonger to share more than 140 characters with us!  She’s also blogs at http://socialhousingcomms.blogspot.com/.)

KazThomas @podnosh  Internet:  Encyclopedia of life filled with screens of knowledge!  I reckon that sums it up? (Karen’s blog)

BostinBloke @podnosh electronic library

parboo @steve_nicholls @podnosh yes… and it finds stuff quicker than a quick thing in a quick box and it talks too and you can put stuff in it.

One I left out of order was this:

mattbuck_hack @parboo @podnosh Is the ‘answer’ us? 😉  #copyright #gnomic #utterancesINC

I do wonder whether reading this would make the person who asked the question any the wiser but is amuses me that the tweet that most seemed to sum up my inadequate thought (which is nothing more complicated than “help”) should come from Matt Buck – a cartoonist, one who more than most might be able to explain the transition from 2 dimensions to 3.