Powering e-democracy with Microsoft

01 Apr 2003

In July 2002, the Cabinet Office issued the Consultation Paper entitled “In the service of democracy” on a policy for electronic democracy. For local government, ieG requirements are currently seen to be the main ICT drivers at a strategic level. However, at a practical level, there is still a continuing need to demonstrate Best Value, which means that the true interpretation of “e” in e-Government must be in delivering efficiency and effectiveness of the authorities’ services.

For the democratic process in particular, greater involvement with the electorate is key. ICT must be used to make it easier for people to access public information, follow the political process, discuss and form groups, get engaged in policy formation, scrutinise government. Delivery of democracy should look to deliver business benefits internally to the authority as a part of this process.

If citizens are to participate fully in the democratic process, they must be informed, kept up to date on developments and allowed to interact with representatives at all stages. Enriching the information available online will assist this transition to an informed and transactional e-Democracy society, making it easier for citizens and representatives to hold public bodies to account.

The only way to deliver these is through intelligent use of technology. A number of councils in the UK are already benefiting from the extended scope of their incumbent Strategic Knowledge Management Systems that were originally designed to support the internal function of the Democratic Services departments to now include a web based interface to enable full e-participation.

  “In 2002, our IEG2 statement illustrates how our vision is progressing with the public having access to the democratic process through CMIS. Moving forward with our citizen consultation group and with newer CMIS versions we aim to ensure we continue to fully address these needs in a very user friendly manner. That CMIS can approach the issue of IEG from the practical aspect of implementing in a secure manner has been of particular benefit.” Steven Jewell, Head of IT, Milton Keynes Council

CMIS is one of the most respected Strategic Knowledge Management Systems used by Councils throughout the UK to deliver e-Democracy internally and to the electorate. CMIS was originally developed to address the need for Member Services staff to be able to more effectively manage the cabinet or committee structure and cycle for Council Members, Officers and Citizens to search for and find minute, report, agenda or resolution information from previous meetings, using SQL as the back-end database.

As Neale Hayes, CMIS Product Development Manager, says, “As we have extended the effectiveness of CMIS to encompass true citizen involvement, the power, resilience and scaleability of SQL as the back end database has been a great advantage. Not one of our sites has complained about the speed of retrieval of information, even where the public are searching in real time. This is important as once the services are made available, Citizens’ expectations will be raised.”

News & Blog