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Electronic democracy for Wolverhampton

Abstract : E-democracy brings the workings of government closer to people, making it more accessible and easier to understand, one of the aims of the Webocracy project. A pilot, run since May 2002 by one of the partners, Wolverhampton City Council, is showing promising results as residents are increasingly participating in online discussions and opinion polls about key local issues.

The three-year IST programme project, involving eight partners from the UK, Finland, Germany and the Slovak Republic, was launched in October 2000. Project partners developed an Internet based system, Webocrat, which uses advanced information and communication technologies. Pilots have also been run in the city wards of Tahanovce and Dargovskych hrdinov in the city of Kosice in the Slovak Republic.

"The added value of engaging citizens on the Web is that it's a different channel that attracts people who may not participate through other means," says Peter Thomson, Wolverhampton City Council's Policy Officer for e-government.

Wolverhampton's Wolforum site, which is based on Webocrat, is an interactive website offering access to information, discussion forums and online opinion polls. Such online outreach attracts people who may not be comfortable speaking out at a public meeting or talking to someone who approaches them on the street with a clipboard. So far, public feedback has been positive.

"People appreciate the service and the level of usage is building up fairly steadily," says Thomson. "It was off to a slow start but we have been linking the information to other community events and involving agencies."

These linkages to public services and community agencies are key as people are concerned about a range of issues that involve a number of services that do not necessarily fit into Council departments, such as cleaner streets, crime, and public health.

"Working in partnership allows us to respond to what people want to say," he explains. "Wolforum also allows us to link into other events such as the City Action Forum, involving meetings, tours and discussions about community issues. The discussion area of Wolforum fed into that process."

Wolforum complemented other public engagement and consultation activities involving public services and community agencies in the Wolverhampton Partnership. Thomson says the Partnership's joint participation work would have come about without the project, but without the benefit of online participation.

E-democracy in action
The details of the system were designed by project partners through consultation with potential users - citizens, elected members and council officers - as part of the project to ensure it meets real needs.

Important documents such as reports, budget proposals and minutes of meetings will be published on the Web. People who need this information will be able to locate documents through a variety of menus, indexes or search facilities, created automatically by the system and reflecting their individual needs. In this way, everyone will be able to receive information in a way that makes sense to them; not always the case with existing systems.

Wolforum's lively discussion forums involve citizens, councillors and council officers. Citizens will be able to use these forums to express their opinion on important issues of public interest and to debate alternative solutions, without having to attend a meeting.

With other online discussion systems it can be difficult to keep track of topics as the debate progresses. The new Webocrat system is more advanced in that the topics of discussion will be classified and contributions organised accordingly. This makes it as easy as possible for participants to engage in an ongoing dialogue.

Forums and online opinion polls on specific issues, and questions of public interest will emerge from reactions to published documents or the discussion forums. The results of votes will be then fed back into those areas. This may appear similar to current online polling systems, but the connection with information and discussion should result in better informed and more considered views being expressed by citizens, and as such, add value when fed into decision-making.

The Wolforum forums engage users in the following online discussions:

I like Wolverhampton because . . .
How would you change Wolverhampton?
Leisure opportunities
Making a healthy city
Neighbourhoods and communities
The built environment
Pollution and waste management
Law and order
Strategic area forums (covering all City Wards) 
Democracy - voting at 16
Online voting in the not too distant future

The Webocracy project does not involve online voting because of the complex security and authentication issues around voting. Thomson explains that although there is a degree of security provision in the project, it's not intended to be up to the strength online voting would require.

In some areas of the UK there have been pilots of online voting for the last two elections, but not in Wolverhampton. However, there is a clear commitment from the UK national government to move to online voting, but that is long-term.

"We don't expect to try it in Wolverhampton until at least 2005," he said. "But we do hope that this project will lead to more people seeing the importance of voting in local elections."

Voting took place on 1 May 2003 for one-third of the members of the Wolverhampton City Council - one in each of the twenty wards within the city. The list of candidates was posted on the Council site before the vote and results immediately followed.

Subject Descriptors : Information processing, Information retrieval, Information transmission
Subject Index Codes : Information Processing, Information Systems
Subject Class : IT, telecommunications
Remarks : Results Entry form
Collaboration Sought : Further research or development support, Information exchange/Training
Sources of Support : CEC
Programmes : IST
Projects : IST-1999-20364
Project Title : Web Technologies Supporting Direct Participation in Democratic Processes

Contact Details
  Contact Name : SABOL, Tomas
  Position : Project co-ordinator
  Department : Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
  Contact Organisation : Technical University of Kosice
  Address : Letna 9
  City : Kosice
  Region : VYCHODNE SLOVENSKO
Kosicky kraj
  Postcode : 04120
  Country : SLOVAKIA
  Telephone Number : +421-95-6023259
  Fax Number : +421-95-6334960
  Electronic Mailbox : sabol@tuke.sk

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