Moving into the 21st Century

A very happy Easter to family, friends, constituents and colleagues.

A few thoughts reflecting on the Corporate Scrutiny meeting last Thursday. My colleague, Cllr Marco Longhi, has already posted on the subject here: http://marcolonghi.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/new-media-social-networking/

We discussed the ICT Stretegy and a value for money review of the Communications Unit. I believe that it’s time ICT and Communications begin to overlap and use each other more. The key point I raised is that communicating with the residents of Walsall is a two way process and it should strengthen accountability, educate and participation. The Council need to provide value for money but they also need to tell people what services they offer and what they can do to use them or change them. How can we do this in the modern age whilst maintaining more traditional forms of communication? Is issuing 900 odd press releases over a few months really the best way of talking to residents? Also what can the Council do with the data it has in order to inform residents and councillors in their decision making? Should it open data up to public through API’s etc?

The topic is a lot bigger than the time allotted at the meeting so we have agreed to set up a working group to look at the issues around Communcations and ICT. I hope to be on this group with Cllr Marco Longhi and we’d like you to join in too. If you are a resident, professional or just someone with an interest then come along. Details will be thrashed out in May so i’ll post more then.

If you are interested then get intouch. Maybe we can start something in Walsall that will get picked up by the public sector across the country…