Category: Local Government

Very Local Media blossoming in Lozells – but who should keep watering it?

I was really pleased to find the first bulletins from Lozells News – a new child led digital service, appear in my feed stream last week:

Lozells News Highlights from can uk on Vimeo.

This is a project from CAN-UK, who’ve been working from Ladywood for more than a decade. Lozells already has the very fine www.lozells.info and the South Lozells Housing Regeneration area is beginning to use the web to tell the story of how it is progressing, see vision-lozells.org.

A couple of things.

The first is the question of how to integrate these a little better and so seed more local story telling? Perhaps a local social media surgery might help? It is a certainly somehting I’d be interested in.

The other is that our own experience of creating local news with young people  in Frankley or Castle Vale (and others) tells us there remains a problem of how we keep things going once the project ends. There’s no lack of enthusiasm from the young people:  Comments like

this was the best week ive had at Frankley, and making this podcast was a great experiance!

and

can’t wait to see if we do anything else

show there is an appetite for more.  It’s rarely an issue of equipment or websites etc, these are now cheap enough and simple enought to leave behind.  I think the problem is often who will take the lead/ownership in your absence.

So thoughts?  How could we ensure that when the project dosh dries up the storytelling keeps flowing?

Fazeley Studios meets LocalGovCamp meets new Podnosher

Hello there, it’s Paul here, Paul Henderson. you may know me from ruralnet|uk or various twitterings. I’m lucky enough to be joining Nick at Podnosh to generally help out, get in the way and in the case of an exciting day one – eat chocolate fudge cake!

Why? Well Fazeley Studios, home of Podnosh and other top Digital and creative businesses in Birmingham is hosting  the first ever UK LocalGovCamp. Kate Manion showed Nick and me round the rooms that we’ll be using and we tested the two things that any campers need most in the world..wifi and food

Despite Kate’s best efforts, we’ll be trying to maintain an air of disorganisation around LocalGovCamp, but chocolate fudge cake lovers note, there will be no excuses for low turn out during  after lunch sessions…

Online Petitions for Birmingham City Council.

Kris Kowalewski at Birmingham City Council press office has sent me this:

Online petitions are set to be introduced by Birmingham City Council as a 21st Century way for citizens to express their views on matters of concern.  Under the plans, the new easy-to-use system, accessible via www.birmingham.gov.uk, will go live later this month.

E-petitoners will be able to upload external documents and images as supporting information and follow the progress of their petition through its life cycle thanks to a timeline function.  Additionally the system would give users access to support materials to market their petition to the public and be given the ability to create paper-based versions of petitions to run at the same time.

Those working on the scheme in partnership with the city council include Digital Birmingham and Service Birmingham.  Cllr Paul Tilsley, Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council, said: “The introduction of an e-petition facility promises to be major step forward for the city of Birmingham.  “It will provide an additional mechanism for people to have their say on issues – strengthening and broadening citizens’ access and participation in democratic decision-making.  “As a council we are committed to embracing modern technologies and enabling citizens to make the most of the digital age. This project is clear evidence of this.”

Funding for the system would be supplied by the EU, which would also foot the bill for any amendments and upgrades that are needed over the next two years.

The most prominent online petition system was created by MySociety for the 10 Downing Street site and has created all sorts of political ructions since it went live in in November 2006. It was an early triumph in the process of using the internet to nurture a conversation between governed and government.  The Downing Street site also gets used for local petitions, such as this one started by the Bradley Stoke Examiner in Gloucestershire.

The Scottish Parliament has also be at it since January 2007 and Kingston upon Thames was one of the first local authorities to get started back in February 2007.

Birmingham City Council will use the Public-i E-Petitions system used by the ones mentioned above and by Bristol City Council.  There is a set up cost this financial year of £7,500 followed by an expected annula running cost of £1,332, currently funded for two years from EuroPetition project.  Source from the Democratic services minutes here (pdf) and here (pdf).

Also see Jon and Stef.