Local eDemocracy and e-Participation Update



To: |Parmjit Dhanda MP |From: |Dylan Jeffrey

LTIE | |

| | |Location: |4 F/6, Eland House |

| | |Tel: |020 7944 3216 |

| | |Date: |21 July 2008 |

|Copies: |PS/Other Ministers | | |

| |PS/Peter Housden | | |

| |Advisers | | |

| |Andrew Campbell | | |

| |David Rossington | | |

| |John Shield | | |

| |Deborah Heenan | | |

| |Stuart Hoggan | | |

| |Andrea Ledward | | |

| |Henry Tam | | |

| |Ed Cox | | |

| |Peter Blair | | |

| |Neil Reeder | | |

| |Jaime Rose | | |

| |Simon Berry | | |

| |Alasdair Frew | | |

| |Heather Monro | | |

| |Sarah Southerton | | |

| |Emma Hagan | | |

| |Antony Carpen | | |

| |Elvor Cohen | | |

| | | | |

Future of ICELE Products

Summary

1. To agree the future of the products developed or managed by the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) following your decision to close the Centre from the 30 June 2008.

Timing

2. Immediate. Decision on the future of the ICELE products/tools following a review was agreed in submission dated 11 June 2008 and has been the subject of a large number of MSUs and TOs in July 2008. There are also several PQs (see Annex A) by Ed Davey MP, which required a response by midday on Monday 21 July.

Recommendation

3. Agree in principle to:

• Maintain the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform (outlined in full at point 10) until October 2011 with total funding support of £10,590 from existing local e-democracy funding based on an immediate advance payment to the hosting organisation from Lichfield District Council.

• To investigate and arrange for the transfer of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and archiving of all information currently held on the ICELE web portal to either the or togetherwecan websites or an alternative social media platform following a short feasibility study. The existing url for ICELE will be maintained for two years with a forward to the new address where the archived information is to be held at a total cost of approximately £200.

• To transfer the IPR for the existing guidebooks to the new archive and for a decision to be made on their future use and suitability to support the Empowerment Agenda by the Local Democracy and Empowerment Directorate.

• To establish limited seed funding from existing local e-government funds for the e- platform and website provision for community organisations and all IPR to be transferred to an alternative host authority currently using the system, probably Birmingham City Council pending further negotiations.

• To formally offer and transfer the IPR of .uk, a full listing of all councillors at principal authorities in the UK, to the LGA.

• To agree to delegate all further decisions concerning the use of the ICELE brand and any remaining products to Lichfield DC in consultation with LTIE pending further discussions and which will have no further financial impact upon the Department.

Background

4. On the 13 June 2008, you formally notified ICELE of your decision to cease provision of future funding advising them to cease operations from the 30 June. Since the decision, the Department has received several letters from Council Leaders, individuals and organisations relating to the products of e-voice and ReadmyDay/BloginaBox, an e-petition has been established on no.10 petitions website with signatories currently in three figures and the matter has been raised by Eric Pickles in the House in the opposition statement to the White Paper “Communities in control: real people, real power” on the 9 July 2008, and in PQs from Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats.

5. It is considered that the options recommended are feasible, provide a solution to the vast majority of correspondence raised about the products and are viable in fitting in with our strategic direction for the empowerment agenda.

Considerations

6. A decision was made to cease funding and to close the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) with effect from the 30 June 2008 and a review of existing products and services provided by ICELE to be conducted.

7. The Review of products and services mainly focuses upon those taken forward by ICELE in respect of the:

• Local e-Democracy National Project products are listed in Annex B

• The VOICE product review is listed in Annex C

• ICELE project development and services listed in Annex D

8. Communities and Local Government launched the White Paper, “Communities in control: real people, real power” on the 9 July 2008 which referenced the need for use of new technology to be considered as part of the empowerment agenda.

9. A review has been conducted by officials and the following provisional recommendations have been made for products. Further information about the products are available at :

10. To establish funding for ReadmyDay/BloginaBox bloggers platform to continue for a further tow years beyond the current licence agreement. There are currently 217 registered users from 93 councils. Political affiliations, based on the description given on their sites is as follows:

➢ 2 BNP

➢ 59 Conservative

➢ 5 Green

➢ 30 Independent

➢ 47 Labour

➢ 46 Liberal Democrat

➢ 28 Other

The service is growing and these figures change regularly. Funding costs will be less than £8,000 p.a. for two years.

There are alternative blogging sites available however BloginaBox offers a unique solution on which on which:

➢ Members agree to a code of conduct and the portal has the relevant disclaimers to avoid legal issues

➢ Members get instant political templates and the platform can be used with council peer support

➢ There are no advertisements

➢ There is accompanying "good practice" support and guidance

➢ Membership builds a national directory of bloggers and a nationally aggregated feeds

➢ There is a sense of community

➢ Council Officers can use this because of the peer support offered by local authorities.

11. To establish funding and support for e-. There are currently 3,362 community groups registered on the VOICE site or using its derivatives. . An example of a popular and well used site on e-.uk is the Voluntary Action North Lincolnshire site which currently has 870 members and is increasing at a rate of approximately 40% per month since its launch earlier this year. Using established protocol arrangements from the Local e-Gov Programme, the service would be formally offered to users and primarily, Birmingham City Council have indicated they would be willing to undertake this role.

12. To arrange for transfer the IPR and all documentation on the website to an archive facility on either:

• the Department’s , which is run in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice

• the Department’s Together We Can website

• a social media site/wiki established by social media entrepreneurs under the direction of the CLG Empowerment Division.

13. To transfer the IPR of the Guidebooks on e-petitioning; e-voice; BloginaBox; Civic Leadership Blogging; Civic Participation Webcasting; Local Issues Forums and Transformational eDemocracy from LDC to CLG for use as part of the work on Empowerment and to make available through the aforementioned route for all documentation.

14. To close down Picturepoll, a poll visualization tool, as there is no demonstrable need.

15. To finalise discussions on the ICELE brand with organisations such as the Consultation Institute and for a decision to be made by LTIE based on viability and an impact assessment for CLG.

16. To formally offer the IPR of the .uk top the LGA. This is a url and service which provides emails and contact details for all councillors in the United Kingdom.

17. To agree with LDC for the existing EU funded European work to be conducted jointly and disseminated with the West Midlands LGA European Office in partnership with the Regional Assembly.

18. The process for transfer will be based on IPR agreements drawn up for relevant transfer. The ongoing costs for liaison activity with hosts and CLG Empowerment Division will be negligible as most relates to existing agreements and information activity on new work.

19. The total funding requirements and the time period covered for key products are outlined in the table below:

|Product |Time Period |Funding |Responsibility |

|VOICE |Up to April 2010 |Seed Funding of no more than £70,000 to |Birmingham City Council |

| | |Birmingham City Council | |

|ReadmyDay/BloginaBox |Up to September 2010 |£20,000 from e-Gov funding provision |t.b.d., possibly 21Publish |

|Website and Content |n.d. |Transfer of archive – funding to be |LTIE in partnership with |

| | |determined for process |Empowerment Division |

|.uk |n.d. |Nil |To transfer to LGA |

|European projects activity |Up to December 2009 |Provided by EU |LDC in partnership with WMLGA |

|Guidebooks |n.d. |Transfer of archive – funding to be |LTIE in partnership with |

| | |determined and new income stream to |Empowerment Division |

| | |provider | |

|eDemocracy Diagnostic Tool and|n.d. |Nil |Transfer to Council of Europe, |

|Measurement Index | | |De Montfort Univeristy and the |

| | | |Univeristy of Zurich EDC |

Finance

20. All financial implications are met with agreed provision for local e-government within the LTIE division and have been profiled accordingly.

Communications

21. To arrange for a final decision on the future of the ICELE products to be made through contact with registered users of the products, a joint statement from Lichfield DC and CLG and for this in turn to be communicated on the leading blogs and discussions forums as previously done in respect of ICELE’s future.

Legal

22. IPR issues are being resolved by Eversheds LLP of Nottingham as the legal advisers to ICELE and Lichfield DC.

Index of annexes

1. Draft PQ responses given on 21 July 2008 in Annex A

2. Local e-Democracy National Project products are listed in Annex B

3. The VOICE product review is listed in Annex C

4. ICELE project development and services listed in Annex C

5. Letter to ICELE confirming closure.

6. Previous submission of 11 June to Parmjit Dhanda from Dylan Jeffrey

Dylan Jeffrey

LTIE

Annex A

PQ Responses (dated 21 July 2008)

PQ 4704 07/08 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what budget her Department has allocated to the Read My Day/Blog-in-a-Box platform for each of the next three financial years; and if she will make a statement.

We have agreed to provide funding of £10,590 to provide the required funding for the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform to operate until October 2011.

We are writing to all users on the platform to inform them of the decision and to encourage the establishment of a user group to seek how the platform can be made sustainable beyond this date. It is hoped that this seed funding will provide the opportunity for users to take control of this important asset and secure its future for them and other civic leaders.

PQ 4705 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many visits have been made to the International Centre of Excellence for Local e-Democracy website since its launch; and if she will make a statement.

Since the launch of the ICELE website in October 2006 there have been over 750,000 visits. In the last 6 full months to 30 June 2008, approximately 300,000 visits have been recorded.

PQ 4706 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what plans her Department has to maintain and promote the resources and toolkits developed by the International Centre for Excellence for Local e-Democracy; and if she will make a statement.

A Review is currently being conducted by my officials and the International centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy to establish the current content and web traffic to the site. We are keen to retain the resources and toolkits developed by the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy and the previous Local e-Democracy National Project incorporated into it.

My Department is exploring the options currently available including the use existing web resources to promote the empowerment agenda.

PQ 4707 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many community groups have created websites using the Voice platform sponsored by her Department since the platform was launched; and if she will make a statement.

There are currently 3,362 community groups who have created websites and are registered on the VOICE site or using its open source derivatives.

PQ 4708 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much funding her Department has given to the International Centre for Excellence for Local e-Democracy to support the Voice platform; and if she will make a statement.

The Voice platform has been constructed from an amalgam of different national projects and partnerships within the Local e-Government Programme which ran from 2002-06.

Funding directly attributable to the product was for £3,500,000 for the Environment and Community Online Residents e-Services (ENCORE) National Project, £350,000 for the Local Directgov Neighbourhoods and Parish Councils Project and £234,000 allocated to International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy for further development and coding issues.

PQ 4709 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what budget allocation her Department has made for the maintenance of the Voice platform for each of the next two financial years.

The Voice platform is fully funded up to April 2009 using existing resources allocated to the International centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) and thus fulfilling current subscriptions to the service.

The Voice Platform is almost self-sufficient via local authority and voluntary organisation subscriptions. Negotiations are being undertaken as part of a review with existing local authority users to determine whether it is viable to transfer the responsibility for maintaining hosting and license fees to a current user as a new host authority to enable taking this product forward. A small additional amount of seed funding will be offered to enable e-voice as a service to be transferred to the new host body and the services to continue.

PQ 4710 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many blogs by councillors and local government officers are registered on the ReadMyDay/Blog-in-a-Box platform sponsored by her Department; and if she will make a statement.

There are currently 166 councillors and 50 local government officers registered on the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform from a total of 93 local authorities.

Annex B

1. Local e-Democracy National Project Description

The Local e-Democracy National Project addressed how new technologies can change the way in which councils engage and work with citizens. E-Democracy focuses on the use of technology to encourage participation and strengthen the bonds between councillors, council officers and citizens.

The project aimed to give citizens and communities a better understanding of the democratic process. This will ensure citizens are more willing to initiate public engagement campaigns and participate in elections, strengthening the local democracy. It aimed to help councillors become more effective as managers of the council and representatives of their wards. The project aimed to ensure that councils became more transparent, accountable and auditable, making the inner workings of the council better understood and the democratic process easier to manage.

The project operated 5 workstreams. Each workstream was managed by a lead local authority with other local authorities and third party suppliers involved. The workstreams were as follows:

1. Developing the e-democracy environment: What is e-democracy and what will make it successful and sustainable? The lead authority for this workstream was North Lincolnshire.

2. Strengthening existing democratic practices: How can councils better interact with their citizens? This workstream was led by Wolverhampton.

3. Addressing the democratic deficit: How can communities better engage with their councils? North Lincolnshire and Lewisham led this workstream.

4. Evaluating e-democracy: What is happening now in e-democracy? This workstream was led by Bristol.

5. Project management and rollout: How can we make this relevant and useful for all local authorities? This workstream was led by St Albans.

The project commissioned and reviewed surveys and academic research to understand the state of e-democracy activity in the UK, the barriers to e-democracy and progress that has been made in this field. The project was active in the piloting of a selection of tools, approaches and methods available for engaging communities, citizens, councils and councillors with each other. The Local e-Democracy project looked at webcasts, blogs (web logging), text alerts, e-panels, e-consultation, committee information systems and online surgeries to see what works, what the benefits are and whether they should be replicated. Best practice guidelines, exemplar materials, case studies, software specifications, strategy guides, route maps and business case templates were developed.

The Local e-Democracy project ran two websites. e- as an internal site for the sharing of data. e-.uk was the external site for use by councils, councillors and citizens alike.

1.2 Description of Project Materials

As shown on the product catalogue, the Local e-Democracy National Project has produced 192 documents/outcomes. The majority of the outcomes are Word documents; however the Local e-Democracy project also developed open source software, content management systems, interactive toolkits, databases, PowerPoint documents and templates.

1.2.1 Workstream 1. Developing the e-democracy environment

1.2.1.1 e-Democracy toolkit – roadmap

The main product outcome of Workstream 1 was the e-Democracy toolkit. It was developed by Accenture, on behalf of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (“Hammersmith and Fulham”). The toolkit aimed to guide local authorities through the full Local e-Democracy project using a variety of different methods to locate information most relevant to the needs of each local authority. It consisted of a collection of route maps pulling the products into a logical sequence to allow a local authority to follow the implementation of e-Democracy from the initial business case to the final evaluation. The toolkit was an overarching product, which consisted of an accumulation of reports, guidance documents, templates and assessment tools.

Tagish have been commissioned to turn the toolkit into an online interactive version.

1.2.1.2 Business Case Builder / Business Planning Builder

These tools guide a local authority through a process map to establish a business case. The toolkit contains a draft business case, a guide to adapting the business case to local needs and presentation materials for discussing the business case with political and managerial teams. It was developed by De Montfort University (“De Montfort”) and used a third party contractor called Branded Spider to turn their various outputs into more interactive tools.

1.2.1.3 Debate Toolkit

This toolkit was developed by De Montfort. It supported the Business Case and contains PowerPoint materials to provoke debate and provide a framework for bringing together the different insights of each group.

1.2.1.4 Funding Database

The funding database was developed by Enterprise AB and sponsored by SOCITM. It is a database of funding sources with details and links to other sites. The aim of this database is to ease the searching process and ultimately to provide local authorities with suitable funding sources for e-Democracy projects.

1.2.1.5 Research, Guidance and Case Studies

De Montfort has undertaken research on the cultural and political barriers to e-democracy.

Steven Clift has compiled a number of case studies and briefs relating to international best practice for e-Democracy projects.

A case study database has been created using case studies created throughout the project – including case studies of the pilots within the National Project itself, a process which was managed by RSe Consulting.

1.2.2 Workstream 2. Strengthening existing democratic practices

1.2.2.1 National Councillor Website

This website provides details of all councillors in the UK. At Wolverhampton’s request, LGA have developed this website which incorporates open source software. This allows e-mails sent from a citizen to their councillor directly from the website to be automatically categorised, leading to automated responses. The website also contains an administrative site (where councils can update the e-mail details of councillors) and an XML feed to authorised third parties.

In addition to the creation of the website, Leicester City Council (“Leicester”) and have carried out research into websites for Councillors. Leicester contracted separately with both Poptel and New Local Government Research Unit (“NLGRU”) for the provision of consultancy services.

1.2.2.2 Online Surgeries for councillors/MPs

Kingston upon Thames Council (“Kingston”) developed and piloted a chat room style online forum. This forum enabled young people to conduct secure and private online discussions with a variety of different local government representatives. Kingston worked with the Hansard Society to run the project and evaluate the results. In terms of documentation, training materials for councils and councillors have been created and the pilot has been evaluated and a report written on the lessons learned.

1.2.2.3 Transparency of Policy Making

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council ("Barnsley") and Esprit have developed and piloted a committee's information, decision tracking and reporting system. They created a “How to” Guide, Data Model and case study.

1.2.2.4 Panel, Forums and Engagement

Bristol developed and piloted an e-panel consultation. An e-panel is an interactive way to consult a wide range of citizens on important issues. It is based on a standalone website and uses discussion forums, surveys and live chats for members to discuss issues with experts and each other before giving their final views in polls and surveys. E-panel evaluation software was created by Community People Limited.

RBA Research Limited has evaluated the e-panel pilot. A report has been produced and a guide created for local authorities intending to set up and run an e-panel.

1.2.2.5 e-Petitioning

Kingston worked with Napier University’s Teledemocracy Unit in the development and piloting an e-Petitioning application, which enables citizens to set up their own petitions and support petitions online. Process maps, data models and software specifications were created. Open source software has been used to create this product and an evaluation report and best practice guidelines have been written for authorities wishing to implement e-petitioning.

1.2.2.6 Development of Standards and Good Practice

Wolverhampton developed standards and good practice guidance for the online coordination of consultation and participation activity. Data structures and process maps for sharing information on consultation and participation were created alongside a technical report on interoperability standards and metadata standards.

Wolverhampton, Surrey and Reading Borough Council ("Reading") looked at best practice in engaging citizens in issues that cut across organisational boundaries. They created design guidelines, good practice guidance and have written a software report.

1.2.3 Workstream 3. Addressing the democratic deficit

1.2.3.1 Websites for 50+

Surrey developed website models, templates and open source polling software for websites that appeal to the older generations. The open source software is used for online polling and includes instant graphical feedback. XML templates, a demonstration website and a developer's road map have also been created.

In terms of additional documentation, a "lessons learned" report, specialist training material, a description of the technical architecture and the methodology for the website development have been written.

1.2.3.2 Voice of Youth

Surrey piloted a scheme using video kiosks and a website to encourage young people to participate in e-democracy. Again, open source software was used for online polling. An XML open source based content management system for managing videos was also created.

The Voice of Youth website contains a catalogue of cleared films which were produced by young people on subjects of importance to them. In terms of documentation, reports have been written on best practice and lessons learned, accessibility and specialist training. A best practice template, a toolkit for web developers and a model to present to external funding bodies to enable the expansion of the concept were created.

1.2.3.3 Citizenship Online Games

North Lincolnshire and Delib developed online and mobile phone games to explain and encourage participation in e-democracy. Three games were developed, Captain Campaign, Councillor Quest 2 and Money Manager and allowed local authorities to make them bespoke and linked to local landmarks. A report has been written detailing how to tailor the games for incorporation into other local authority websites.

1.2.3.4 E-Democracy Icons

North Lincolnshire has worked with Community Living developing a catalogue of sounds and symbols for words relating to democracy. These icons will help to make e-democracy websites easily accessible to all and were approved by the main disability organisations.

1.2.3.5 Kingston iCan

BBC iCan/Active worked with Kingston, St Albans and Stroud District Council ("Stroud") to develop the BBC iCan online communities democracy toolkit for local authorities to utilise via developed toolkits. Guidance, reports, an information toolkit and case studies have been developed for councils and councillors intending to implement the iCan tool.

1.2.3.6 Web Casting and Enhanced Web Casting

North Lincolnshire worked with UK Council trialling the use of a satellite van to take the web casting of council meetings out to the communities. Croydon and Lewisham also piloted web casting at council and community meetings. Reports, checklists, technical guides, training materials and final evaluations have been written. Stephen Clift and have produced an enhanced webcasting pilot.

The outputs of this project are a functional specification for enhanced webcasting and a “democaster” – essentially a demonstration model of what can be achieved by Local Authorities.

1.2.3.7 Blogging

North Lincolnshire worked with Stephen Clift in piloting the benefits of ‘blogging’ by councillors. A template XML compliant web addition for a standard html website was created. In terms of documentation, a training package, recommendations report and a legislative guide discussing the permitted content of blogs and ramifications have been created.

1.2.3.8 Issues Forum

North Lincolnshire worked with e- to develop issue-based online discussion forums that allow citizens and officials to communicate on a wide range of local issues. Open source tools were developed to allow local authorities to implement a citizen’s forum. A shared platform to run Issues Forums and a group server module that allows for the customisation of the user interface by local authorities have also been created. In terms of documentation, guidance has been written for the management of forums and their users and training materials have been written.

1.2.3.9 Educational Action Zone (“EAZ”) Project

Lewisham worked with local authority teachers to bring democracy direct to school children and their parents in order to encourage participation. This project has created a large amount of documentation including a collection of teaching resources for use as part of the citizenship curriculum, a collection of materials required to undertake a citizenship programme in local schools, a questionnaire toolkit to enable councils to develop their own questionnaire to establish pupils current level of democratic knowledge, and a collection of materials required to undertake a parent’s outreach programme. The project also created a route map for local authorities wishing to implement wireless networks and a route map for implementing a parent's outreach programme.

1.2.3.10 Community Groups

Lewisham has investigated community, voluntary and faith organisations representing excluded and vulnerable groups in an attempt to encourage their involvement with local politics. Training materials, notes on the outcomes and issues that have arisen from the initial project scoping meeting, a list of equipment required to run sessions with community groups, a pilot evaluation and a report on implementation issues have been written. The pilot has also created a ‘metrics’ questionnaire to help measure the baseline and impact of this work.

1.2.3.11 SMS Broadcasting

Southwark piloted text messaging and voice broadcasting services as a means of telling citizens about council activities. This pilot created documentation including a list of suppliers of SMS and voice broadcasting, a template for assessing suppliers, a help guide to establish localised SMS and voice broadcasting services and an evaluation of the pilots and details of lessons learned.

1.2.4 Workstream 4. What is happening now in e-democracy?

1.2.4.1 Self-evaluation Toolkit

This piece of work was led by Bristol. A team of academics created a toolkit for local authorities, which will include a model questionnaire for future self-evaluation of e-democracy. This toolkit allows each local authority to gauge interest and experience, and benchmark figures to enable comparisons.

1.2.4.2 Baseline Survey and Literature Review

Bristol and MORI have undertaken research into current e-democracy activity in UK local authorities. A questionnaire was sent to all local authorities and the results were collated. A written report was then produced with geographical mapping and analysis relating to the status and progress of e-democracy. They have also undertaken research into e-democracy literature and have created a document which summaries the reports relating to e-democracy, aiming to identify common themes and lessons from local e-democracy.

1.2.4.3 Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation

Bristol completed a series of project evaluations. Reports on the findings have been written and research reports citing e.g. methodology have been written to enable others to update the research.

We were informed that academic institutions, including Napier University and Oxford Internet Institute, were used to complete the work undertaken in Workstream 4.

1.2.5 Workstream 5. How can we make this relevant and useful for all Local Authorities?

1.2.5.1 Local e-Democracy National Project Portal

St Albans commissioned and led on the development of the Local e-Democracy website. The website will be used to disseminate the project findings, developments and products to local authorities.

St Albans used (a) Tagish Limited to develop an internet/intranet installation and a Local e-Democracy national project portal using Tagish's iSiteSQL software under licence; and (b) Hedra Limited to supply the development, building and hosting of the Local e-Democracy National Project Website.

1.2.5.2 Literature and Media

St Albans commissioned and developed a range of literature to help disseminate the project’s messages and outcomes to local authorities. They also commissioned and developed a media campaign to raise awareness of the project's aims and achievements. St Albans have worked with Upward Curve in relation to media relations, and with Galmore for the work done around branding and logos.

Annex C

VOICE Review

Briefing paper for CLG

Version 3: 18/07/2008

Contents

Contents 2

1 Executive Summary 2

1 Executive Summary 2

2 Introduction 2

3 Financial Viability 2

4 User Base 2

5 Use of VOICE 2

6 Impact Assessment 2

7 Business Model 2

Appendix 1: Hardware Assets 2

1 Executive Summary

• A large amount of investment has gone into the development of VOICE

• The current home for VOICE is closing at the end of July

• This review document is to provide data to enable a decision on the future of VOICE

• Maintenance and support costs are currently fairly low to run VOICE

• VOICE is currently on plan to break even financially at a technical level

• The largest users of VOICE are: Community, Leisure, Culture and Skills groups

• The fastest growing areas on VOICE are: Voluntary, Support, Family, Youth and Advice

• Numbers of members and communities are growing exponentially

• Unique visitors numbers to the VOICE platform are increasing on a monthly basis

• Averages show that each visitor used the site around 3x per month

• Popular modules are the Calendar, Links, Photo-album, File-storage and Blogger Forums

• There is no cap on storage for the hosting requirements

• Closing VOICE would have a significant negative impact on all the Stakeholders

• Hardest hit would be the Community Groups and Agencies & Partnerships

• No other solution exists to replace the VOICE product

• VOICE can be utilised to meet current CLG aims around Social inclusion, Empowerment and Devolution

2 Introduction

Background

VOICE is an online community platform developed in 2005 in order to:

• Provide websites for communities with tools relevant to their needs

• Enable communities to link up and communicate with each other (National Database)

• Enable Local Authorities to meet Government targets and objectives

• Provide a low cost website content management system

• Enable democratic processes between Local Authorities and their communities

• Enable Local Authorities to gain free demographic information on their communities

A large amount of investment has gone into the development and implementation of VOICE over the past few years and therefore the product contains a wealth of knowledge, best practices and ideas that have been gained from partnerships with:

• ENCORE (Environment and Community Online Residents E-Services

• Local Directgov Neighbourhoods and Parish Councils Project

• Local eDemocracy National Project

• PeDiL (Practical eDemocracy in London)

• EERA (East of England Regional Assembly)

• CASWEB

• ICELE (International Centre of Excellence for Local E-democracy)

Current Status

The VOICE product was given to ICELE in 2006 to help form part of their future sustainability plan. It was envisaged that after the breakeven point all profits would be fed in to the Centre.

Due to a number of reasons including staff skills and resources the Centre was not able to effectively deploy VOICE. ICELE is scheduled for closure at the end of July 2008 and CLG now need to make a decision on the future of VOICE.

Review Purpose

The purpose of this review document is to provide CLG civil servants with data and information to enable them to make a decision on the future of the VOICE platform.

The key aims of the review are to understand:

• Financial viability

• User base

• Use of VOICE

• Impact assessment

• Future business model

The report is intended to supplement the findings from previous independent evaluations of VOICE.

3 Financial Viability

To determine the financial viability of the VOICE product it’s important to understand the current income and expenditure costs as well as projected figures for the next three years.

Income

VOICE uses a three tier subscription model to generate revenue:

• Government Programmes: 5K

• Large Local Authorities: 3K

• District Councils and smaller: 2K

The table below highlights the income for VOICE during the previous year. It is important to note that VOICE was not being marketed during this period.

|Customer |Subscription |

|North Lincolnshire Council |£3000 |

|Birmingham City Council |£3000 |

|GovConnects |£5000 |

|MOJ Network&Learn |£5000 |

|SCIP |£2000 |

|South London Portal |£2000 |

|DirectGov |£5000 |

|RB Kingston |£2000 |

|Community Empowerment Team |£5000 |

|London Police communities |£5000 |

|Lichfield DC |£2000 |

|Total |£39000 |

Table 1: Current income for the VOICE project

In addition to income, VOICE holds value in its hardware assets detailed in the Appendix at the end of this document.

Expenditure

The balance sheet overleaf shows the current expenditure and income for VOICE in the current fiscal year.

|Budget Area |£ - Current |Subscription |

| |Subscription |Period |

| |Period |Assumed |

| |2008-2009 | |

| Direct Costs |4,200 |Paid until end August 2008 |

|Xarg support contract for server maintenance (From 1st May) | | |

|Lightning Internet hosting |14,520 |Paid £7,260 until end Sept’08|

|Xarg telephone support |3,000 |Not paid |

|Xarg Royal Mail Data Postzon and License 100M |1,750 |Not paid |

|Dixerit (Readspeaker) |2,950  |Paid 737.50 until end July |

|TOTAL EXPENDITURE |26,420 |

|North Lincolnshire Council |-2,745 |01/04/08 to 28/02/09 |

|Birmingham City Council |-746 |01/04/08 to 30/06/08 |

|Gov Connects (Tameside) |-1,243 |01/04/08 to 30/06/08 |

|MOJ Network & Learn (DCA) |-1,243 |01/04/08 to 30/06/08 |

|SCIP |-1,000 |01/04/08 to 30/09/08 |

|DirectGov |0 |None |

|RB Kingston |-836 |01/04/08 to 31/08//08 |

|Community Empowerment |-5,000 |01/04/08 to 31/03/09 |

|London Police Communities |-4,575 |01/04/08 to 01/03/09 |

|Kingston Voluntary Action |-333 |01/04/08 to 31/05/08 |

|Lichfield District Council |-1,672 |01/04/08 to 31/01/09 |

|TOTAL INCOME |-19,393 |

|  |  |

|NET EXPENDITURE |7,027 |

Table 2: Current balance sheet for the VOICE project

Findings

The financial information demonstrates;

• Maintenance and support costs are currently fairly low to manage VOICE

• VOICE is currently on plan to break even financially at a technical level

• Investment would be required to market VOICE to new customers to generate profit

4 User Base

User and Support Base

Local Authorities using the VOICE Platform and derivatives:

• North Lincolnshire Council

• Birmingham City Council

• Lichfield District Council

• Camden

• Essex County Council 

• Shropshire (Incl. Brignorth, Oswestry, Shrewsbury & Atcham)

• Buckinghamshire

• Surrey

• Norfolk

 Government Programmes:

• Gov Connects

• Local DirectGov

• TogetherWeCan

 Other Agencies:

• London Police Communities

• A number of schools

 Voluntary Sector Umbrella Organisations:

• SCIP (Sussex IT Development & Support) - CFD Network

• Superhighways

Significantly, communities include local government project implementations such as:

• Safer Neighbourhoods

• Every Child Matters

• Youth Services

• Local Strategic Partnerships

• Patient and Public Involvement Forums

• DCLG Benefits Forum

Community Users

The table below shows the number of community groups using VOICE and its derivatives as categorised by the communities themselves. Please note that individual communities may select multiple classifications.

|Community Type |No. Communities using VOICE Derivatives |

|Advice and Information |211 |

|Animals |148 |

|Arts, Crafts, Music |360 |

|Black and Ethnic |9 |

|Benefits |43 |

|Business & Industry |68 |

|Career and employment |8 |

|Carers |1 |

|Campaign |27 |

|Charities |26 |

|Community Groups |742 |

|Community Safety |35 |

|Communications and Media |27 |

|Complimentary Medicine |7 |

|Consumer affairs |5 |

|Councillors |159 |

|Counseling |58 |

|Culture |467 |

|Disability and special needs |75 |

|Education and skills |401 |

|Employment |13 |

|Environment and Countryside |269 |

|Elderly |23 |

|Families |59 |

|Faith and Religion |139 |

|Farming & Agriculture |8 |

|Government, Law & Rights |9 |

|Health and Social Care |308 |

|Heritage & History |18 |

|Hobbies and Interests |599 |

|Housing & Homelessness |20 |

|Immigration & Nationality |18 |

|Literature |11 |

|Money & Tax |10 |

|Music |3 |

|Neighborhood |60 |

|Other / General |416 |

|Residents Associations |19 |

|Police and Crime |39 |

|Politics |30 |

|Social, Support and Self-Help Groups |395 |

|Sports, Leisure and Recreation |531 |

|Todler & baby groups |56 |

|Transport, Travel and Leisure |206 |

|Training |34 |

|Voluntary Sector Support |212 |

|Young people and youth |290 |

|Women |15 |

|Town & Parish councils |285 |

|Schools |15 |

The data clearly shows that the largest users of VOICE are:

• Community Groups

• Hobbies and Interests

• Sports, Leisure and Recreation

• Culture

• Education and Skills

• Other

Community User Growth

The table below shows the indicative growth of the number of communities to be using the VOICE site since its’ launch in December 2006.

|Community Type |Dec’06 |Apr’07 |Sept’07 |June’08 |Growth of sites since |

| | | | | |Dec’06 |

|Arts, Crafts, Music |3 |9 |27 |36 |33 |

|Black and Ethnic |1 |4 |18 |9 |8 |

|Benefits |0 |1 |5 |27 |27 |

|Career and employment |0 |2 |7 |8 |8 |

|Carers |0 |0 |0 |1 |1 |

|Children and Young People |2 |17 |45 |65 |63 |

|Communications and Media |3 |8 |14 |20 |17 |

|Counseling |0 |0 |0 |20 |20 |

|Culture |1 |5 |9 |24 |23 |

|Disability and special needs |0 |4 |14 |28 |28 |

|Environment and Countryside |5 |11 |18 |28 |23 |

|Elderly |3 |7 |23 |23 |20 |

|Families |2 |11 |17 |45 |43 |

|General |2 |8 |23 |37 |35 |

|Health and Social Care |5 |11 |23 |35 |30 |

|Hobbies and Interests |7 |19 |38 |46 |39 |

|Immigration and nationality |0 |0 |0 |10 |10 |

|Literature |2 |4 |6 |11 |9 |

|Money & Tax |0 |0 |0 |6 |6 |

|Neighbourhoods |0 |0 |0 |4 |4 |

|Residents Associations |1 |5 |10 |19 |18 |

|Police and Crime |4 |8 |5 |20 |16 |

|Social, Support and Self-Help Groups |3 |14 |13 |49 |46 |

|Transport, Travel and Leisure |2 |8 |31 |20 |18 |

|Training |0 |6 |22 |34 |34 |

|Voluntary Sector Support |3 |11 |37 |55 |52 |

|Parish Council |3 |4 |5 |12 |9 |

|Partnerships |4 |6 |9 |13 |9 |

|Consortiums |1 |1 |3 |4 |3 |

|Project and programme |12 |16 |24 |29 |17 |

The fastest growing community areas to be using VOICE are:

• Voluntary Sector Support

• Social Support and Self-Help Groups

• Families

• Children and Young People

• Community Groups

• Advice and Information

5 Use of VOICE

The table below highlights the growing number of members and communities using all the directly provided VOICE services, excluding the platform every month. These figures would rise drastically when new councils subscribe or transfer formally to the VOICE services platform.

|Month (end of) |Number of members |Number of communities |

|Dec 2006 |824 |50 |

|May 2007 |1,125 |108 |

|June 2007 |1,250 |133 |

|July 2007 |1,623 |194 |

|Sept 2007 |2,064 |248 |

|October 2007 |2,118 |259 |

|June 2008 |2,962 |354 |

It’s clear to see:

• Numbers of members and communities are growing exponentially

• A sharp increase in growth would occur if a new subscriber entity joined

Visitors

In addition to understanding the numbers and types of communities using VOICE it is also important to look at the number of individuals visiting and using the sites.

|Month |Unique visitors |Number of visits |Pages |Downloads |

|Oct 2006 |4,176 |10,742 |152734 |2.73 GB |

|Nov 2006 |4,941 |12,002 |165141 |4.09 GB |

|Jan 2007 |4,504 |9,880 |141494 |3.96 GB |

|Feb 2007 |3,099 |6,825 |108746 |2.59 GB |

|Mar 2007 |3,549 |7,875 |141306 |2.72 GB |

|Apr 2007 |3,193 |6,460 |161621 |2.20 GB |

|May 2007 |5,282 |10,184 |328043 |3.09 GB |

|June 2007 |6,697 |12,259 |297977 |2.91 GB |

|July 2007 |6,671 |12,311 |357447 |3.32GB |

|Aug 2007 |6,478 |13,844 |326997 |3.77GB |

|Sept 2007 |7,515 |23,905 |315070 |5.26GB |

|Oct 2007 |8,365 |27,281 |416377 |5.61GB |

|Jan 2008 |9,526 |27,312 |320418 |8.07GB |

|Feb 2008 |10,299 |25,322 |286205 |7.23GB |

|Mar 2008 |12,709 |31,594 |319255 |9.84GB |

|Apr 2008 |15,789 |39,666 |670976 |16.05GB |

|May 2008 |17,341 |47,594 |552607 |13.82GB |

|June 2008 |22,775 |60,811 |528915 |13.51GB |

[pic]

The data demonstrates that

• Unique visitors numbers to the VOICE platform are growing on a monthly basis

• Averages show that each visitor used the site around 3X per month

• Download size is not explicitly linked to amount of use

Modules

The following graph shows the popularity of modules being used by communities in the VOICE system:-

The most popular modules are:

• Calender

• Links

• Photo-album

• File-storage

• Blogger and Forums

These figures are significantly increased when all those using the VOICE platform are applied and increase several times over. The exact figures for all users of the VOICE platform are currently not available.

Bandwidth

The VOICE hosting arrangements are based on 2Mbps premium bandwidth, burstable to 100Mbps. Bandwidth is calculated on the 95th percentile.

The size was around 1.5Mps in March 2008, still below the current VOICE allowance. Extra bandwidth can be purchased at a unit cost of £45 per Mbps.

The hosting package includes 300GB of Network Attached Storage. At present there is no cap on storage.

6 Impact Assessment

As part of the high level evaluation, it is important to assess the impact of closing VOICE on key Stakeholders.

|Issues |Stakeholders |

| |Gov Programmes |Local Authorities |Agencies & Partnerships|Community Groups |

| | | |(LSPs) | |

|Costly Re-Procurement |High |High |High |Low |

|No exact similar product exists | | | | |

|Archiving/Migration |High |High |High |High |

|Need to back-up and re-host information | | | | |

|Loss of financial Investment |High |High |High |Low |

|Investment in tailoring tool | | | | |

|Loss of time investment |High |High |High |High |

|Paid and/or voluntary | | | | |

|Loss of users |Low |Low |High |High |

|Due to URL loss | | | | |

|Disruption of current strategies |Medium |Medium |Medium |High |

|Campaigns and scalability | | | | |

|Need for Re-marketing |Low |Medium |Medium |High |

|Need to re-market to encourage users to new | | | | |

|site | | | | |

|Need for Retraining |Low |High |High |High |

|Extra time, effort and resource spent to | | | | |

|learn new product | | | | |

|Expensive Re-investment |High |High |High |Low |

|Need to tailor a new usable product | | | | |

|Lack of Support |Low |Medium |High |High |

|Where to go to get a new site/new tools | | | | |

|running | | | | |

|Lack of Trust |Low |High |High |High |

|Relationship with government damaged due to | | | | |

|conflicting and confusing mandates | | | | |

The impact assessment shows that:

• Closing VOICE would have a significant negative impact on all the Stakeholders

• Hardest hit would be the Community Groups and Agencies & Partnerships

• Reprocurement, Archiving and the loss of invested time have high impacts for all

• No other solution exists to replace the VOICE product

7 Business Model

ICELE has a firm belief that VOICE is a significant resource for local government and communities. It has the potential to facilitate a number of future mandatory outcomes and is well placed to help meet the objectives set by the recent CLG White Paper.

VOICE has strategic value to help achieve aims around the following policies;

• Social inclusion

• Empowerment

• Devolution

Below are just a few examples of possible expansion areas that ICELE would like to take forward.

• With the support of the GO Network, VOICE can be used as a neutral platform to support LAA partnerships

• The integration with the single community account scheme, developed by London Connects but currently un-utilised. Authorities such as Buckinghamshire are already investigating £20k worth of work to incorporate back-end-only data sets into their local installation.

• Embed a consultation channel so that Local Authorities can involve and target community groups in government level decision making at all levels. This may be linkage with the new IDeA communities of practice.

• Feed more external information into the community group space such as grants information and Change-Up ICT Hub guidance. Get closer to the Office of the Third Sector and existing information providers such as Guidestar UK / j4b to bring together similar programmes.

• The directory is a key feature and can be used to provide information demographics about localities to local authorities. The directory needs better structure and a schema for integration with parallel directory projects such as the Ministry of Justice sponsored ‘’ by mySociety.

Appendix 1: Hardware Assets

[pic]

Table 1: List of hardware assets procured by the project

Hardware remote login details

There are 5 servers, which you can “ssh” to at the addresses:

nr01.xarg.co.uk   (database server, backup file server)

nr02.xarg.co.uk   (file server, backup database server)

nr03.xarg.co.uk   (web server)

nr04.xarg.co.uk   (web server)

nr05.xarg.co.uk   (web server)

Annex D

1.3 Description of ICELE Materials

1.3.1 The ICELE Website

1.3.1.1 Site Content

The content of the ICELE website is a combination of newly keyed information, supplier submitted material and the Local eDemocracy National Project archive. The URL () is also property of the centre.

Special attention should be paid to the following products which reside solely on the website:-

• ‘Reach Out’ guide for new elected members

• Case studies – compiled and owned by the programme

• Project Evaluations, carried out by Gallomanor

1.3.1.2 People Finder

The ‘people finder’ tool was developed by Lichfield District Council with programme money. This is bespoke and relies on the JADU content management system. The content therein is provided by individuals and as such data protection issues must be adhered-to.

1.3.2 Webcastguide (webcastguide.co.uk)

1.3.2.1 Site Content

Webcastguide was build by North Lincolnshire Council from paper based deliverables commissioned by ICELE to Public-I and Westminster Digital. It is currently hosted by North Lincolnshire Council.

1.3.2.2 Interactive Business Case

The ‘guide’ is an interactive part of webcastguide and the main product of the website.

1.3.3 PicturePoll ()

1.3.3.1 Poll visualisation technology

Picture Poll was developed by Delib for North Lincolnshire Council. The IPR is jointly owned.

1.3.4 VOICE (e-.uk)

1.3.4.1 VOICE Technology portal

VOICE is built on open-source software called ‘dotCommunity’. As such there is no IPR ownership although the VOICE installation is a bespoke deployment of dotCommunity and as such there is concept IPR.

1.3.4.2 VOICE Toolkit

The VOICE toolkit (manuals, help texts and voice community pages) were created by ICELE and IPR remains with the centre.

1.3.4.3 Community Templates

A series of community templates were commissioned by ICELE and remain the property of the centre although can be used freely.

1.3.5 ICELE Guides

1.3.5.1 Guidebooks

The guides were created through material commissioned by ICELE or recycled material from the Local eDemocracy National Project. The guides are as follows:-

• Transformational eDemocracy

• Effective Petitioning – The Internet Way (joint IPR with Bristol CC)

• VOICE Getting Started Guide

• Bloginabox Getting Started Guide

• Civic Leadership Blogging Guidebook

• Civic Participation Webcasting Guide

• Issues Forums

1.3.6 Bloginabox

1.3.6.1 Site Content

Site content, in particular the guidance and logo plus user templates (CSS), were commissioned by ICELE and IPR remains with the centre.

1.3.6.2 Technology platform

No part of the technology platform is owned by ICELE. However, we have a contractual agreement with the technology provider that reseller fees can be applied to duplicate deployments.

1.3.7 Learning Pool

1.3.7.1 eLearning Module

The eLearning Module on eDemocracy is jointly owned with Learning Pool. A revamped version was made (unreleased) based on knowledge from ICELE; this has the same arrangement on IPR.

1.3.8 Evaluation Toolkit (CAHDE)

1.3.9 Regional Work

1.3.9.1 Evaluation of Blogs in the West Midlands

As described

1.3.9.2 Evaluation of Blogs in London

As described

22 July 2008 : Column 1156W

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what budget her Department has allocated to the Read My Day/BloginaBox platform for each of the next three financial years; and if she will make a statement. [220194]

Mr. Dhanda: The Department has agreed to provide funding of £10,590 to provide the required resources for the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform to operate until October 2011.

The Department will be communicating with all users on the platform to inform them of the decision and to encourage the establishment of a user group to seek how the platform can be made sustainable beyond this date. It is hoped that this seed funding will provide the opportunity for users to take control of this important asset and secure its future for them and other civic leaders.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many visits have been made to the International Centre of Excellence for Local e-Democracy website since its launch; and if she will make a statement. [220195]

Mr. Dhanda: Since the launch of the ICELE website in October 2006 there have been over 750,000 visits. In the last six full months to 30 June 2008, approximately 300,000 visits have been recorded.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what plans her Department has to maintain and promote the resources and toolkits developed by the International Centre for Excellence for Local e-Democracy; and if she will make a statement. [220196]

Mr. Dhanda: A review is currently being conducted by the Department and the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy to establish the current content and web traffic to the site. We are keen to retain the resources and toolkits developed by the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy and the previous Local e-Democracy National Project incorporated into it.

The Department is exploring the options currently available including the use existing web resources to promote the empowerment agenda.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many community groups have created websites using the Voice platform sponsored by her Department since the platform was launched; and if she will make a statement. [220286]

Mr. Dhanda: There are currently 3,362 community groups who have created websites and are registered on the VOICE site or using its open source derivatives.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much funding her Department has given to the International Centre for Excellence for Local e-Democracy to support the Voice platform; and if she will make a statement. [220287]

Mr. Dhanda: The Voice platform has been constructed from an amalgam of different national projects and partnerships within the Local e-Government Programme which ran from 2002 to 2006.

Funding directly attributable to the product was for £3,500,000 for the Environment and Community Online Residents e-Services (ENCORE) National Project, £350,000 for the Local Directgov Neighbourhoods and Parish Councils Project and £234,000 allocated to International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy for further development and coding issues.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what budget allocation her Department has made for the maintenance of the Voice platform for each of the next two financial years. [220288]

Mr. Dhanda: The Voice platform is fully funded up to April 2009 using existing resources allocated to the International centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) and thus fulfilling current subscriptions to the service.

The Voice platform is almost self-sufficient via local authority and voluntary organisation subscriptions. Negotiations are being undertaken as part of a review with existing local authority users to determine whether it is viable to transfer the responsibility for maintaining hosting and license fees to a current user as a new host authority to enable taking this product forward. A small additional amount of seed funding will be offered to enable e-voice as a service to be transferred to the new host body and the services to continue.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many blogs by councillors and local government officers are registered on the ReadMyDay/Blog-in-a-Box platform sponsored by her Department; and if she will make a statement. [220289]

Mr. Dhanda: There are currently 166 councillors and 50 local government officers registered on the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform from a total of 93 local authorities.

|To: |Parmjit Dhanda MP |From: |Dylan Jeffrey |

| | | |Senior Policy Adviser |

| | | |LTIE |

| | |Location: |4/F6, Eland House |

| | |Tel: |020 7944 3216 |

| | |Date: |11 June 2008 |

|Copies: |Listed at the foot of submission | | |

Future of the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE)

Summary

23. To seek your agreement on CLG support for the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE).

Timing

24. Urgent. On 29 May 2008, the chairman of ICELE issued an open letter (Appendix A) to approximately 3,000 organisations and individuals announcing that ICELE will cease operations with Lichfield District Council at the end of June and we need to clarify our position.

Recommendation

25. That you agree that following CLG’s fulfilment of a commitment of two years original programme funding totalling £620,000 up to 31 Match 2008 and the provision of interim funding of £85,000 from March 31- June 30 2008, CLG should cease funding ICELE and officials should:

• review the appropriateness and cost benefits of continued investment in existing tools and products

• establish the criteria and methodology for transfer of such tools to new host environments at little or no cost to the Department.

• publicly record our thanks and support for the good work ICELE has done in taking forward this area of work in a letter (Appendix B) to ICELE and which clearly outlines the reasons why the decision has been taken but reinforces our commitment to using new technologies to empower communities..

Background

26. ICELE was launched in October 2006 by the former CLG Minister, Angela Smith, at the United Nations CIAPR Conference.

27. ICELE aimed to allow for the development and roll out of products and services from a range of projects within the Local e-Government Programme to further support local councils, parish and town councils, neighbourhoods and community and voluntary services in taking forward the local eParticipation agenda in the UK and overseas.

28. ICELE is directly sponsored by CLG. When ICELE was established it was intended to be funded for two years and received a funding commitment from CLG until the 31 March 2008, with funding of £420,000 over two years with additional funding of £200,000 to make VOICE fit for purpose. It was set a number of objectives by the Department including “To build a model for long-term sustainability beyond the programme life-span”, which it has so far failed to achieve except for some limited funding from the EU.

29. The origins of the Department’s support for local e-democracy were contained within the Local e-Government strategy to e-enable local government services by 2005, a policy established in 1999. Local e-democracy was one of nine key services identified as part of the Local e-Government Programme. The Department in partnership with local authorities funded a number of projects to: assess the technologies available; explore which channels worked best; to develop electronic tools; and examine the training needs and guidance requirements for councils. The history of the programme is shown below.

Figure 1: History to the setting up of ICELE

30. Local e-Democracy was slightly different to other strands of e-Government, in that it was about more than delivery of transactional services and about establishing the concept and requirements of local e-democracy and secondly developing new ideas and tools for delivery of the processes mapped against those requirements.

31. Whilst there was specific funding through the Local e-Democracy National Project, other funding was also provided for associated work, ideas and innovations as part of the wider local e-government programme. ICELE is designed to take all of these outputs and promote them accordingly to local authorities.

32. A key instrument for delivery is the ICELE website, built to act as a conduit for information, advice and guidance about all CLG sponsored activity on e-participation, availability of products and tools produced by CLG and other third parties. It also enables the Centre to work in partnership with the Council of Europe, the European Union and the United Nations in working collaboratively and in cooperation on new research and providing a channel for outputs.

33. The work of ICELE includes:

•         ICELE website () – portal to promote news, tools and learning materials from the local e-Government programme and other sectors - approximately 43,000 hits per month.

•        VOICE – national community portal offering content management and other benefits. This is currently in use at a number of locations including Birmingham City Council, North Lincolnshire Council, London Communities Policing Partnership, CLG and MoJ.

•        e-Petitions – online tool successfully adopted by Bristol City Council, Kingston-upon-Thames and the South Yorkshire. ICELE provides guides, practical training and events.

•        Blogging – ICELE provides a free blogging platform for civic leaders with linked database of users and a training module for locally elected representatives - over 150 local councillors using the service.

•       Webcasting – used by a large number of councils to broadcast coverage of their meetings/proceedings. ICELE provides free guides and advice.

•        Support and organisation to councils via regional work such as North East Connects “Changing the Role of the Frontline Councillor” programme

•         Councillor Websites: Since 2005, all elected representatives (over 20,000) now have their own website. ICELE provides training for councillors to manage their own website.

In addition, ICELE acts as the portal for all information produced by CLG sponsored activity on local e-democracy/e-participation and international case studies through their award winning website. This includes projects such as:

• Acknowledge – free consultation software

• Online Issues Forums connecting councils with local citizens and communities in informed and constructive debate

• LOG ON icons for disability groups to connect IT and democracy

• Research and guidance on how to set up websites for youth and 50+ projects and online radio

• Promotion of e-democracy Games for youth and schools

• Access to evaluation documents and studies on local e-democracy, many of which were the first of their kind, have not been repeated and are often cited in academic research into the use of technology and engagement

34. ICELE is chaired by Cllr. Matthew Ellis (Conservative), Deputy Leader of Lichfield District Council and a Member of Staffordshire County Council. Vice-Chairs are Cllr. Bill Brooks (Labour) who is leader of Northumberland County Council and Cllr. Mary Reid (Liberal Democrat), Cabinet Member at Kingston-upon-Thames. The Centre seeks to adopt a tri-partisan inclusive approach to the subject and implementation of local eDemocracy.

35. The Board is supported by two Advisory Boards, one domestic and one international. ICELE directly employs five members of staff as support who are either on fixed term contracts for the duration of the programme or will be redeployed back to their original posts in Lichfield District Council.

36. In January 2008, ICELE submitted a bid for further funding until 31 March 2010. The Division at that time faced some uncertainty about future budgetary provision due to the issues of cost and transfer of Government Connect to DWP. It was agreed to keep the issue under consideration until this was resolved. Furthermore, officials had commenced work on the Empowerment White Paper, and future policy and strategy on empowerment using technology was under consideration.

37. Representatives of ICELE met with you in February to put forward their case (Appendix C) and subsequently also held discussions with officials. In April 2008, officials agreed that unallocated funding of £85,000 would be used as transitional funding for 3 months to cover minimal spend and commitments subject to a final decision being made on the future of ICELE following an Evaluation Review.

38. ICELE has recently received EU funding of £100,000 for two projects on e-participation which will run until 2010. It is hoped that in the event of closure, the Centre Manager could be redeployed to work directly on this project on a freelance basis thereby mitigating the circumstances of any job losses for those on fixed term contracts.

Evaluation of ICELE

39. In March 2008, an Evaluation Review was conducted by officials which concluded that of the original six measurable objectives, ICELE had only fulfilled one, failed to adequately meet three and not met two, as detailed in the table below. Furthermore the Review found that ICELE had failed satisfactorily meet 50% (6 out of 12) of the Key Targets established. This is shown in the Appendix D.

40. In 2007/08, ICELE’s expenditure was £357,790. Of this ICELE spent the majority of its budget, 66%, on Programme Management. The Review concluded that “the money could have been better used for a streamlined programme management and facilitation of projects and dissemination of good practice”.

41. In respect of other issues the Review established similar other not-for-profit organisations are able to deliver sustainability which are not linked to any direct Government sponsorship. Examples include MySociety and the Politech Institute of Political Technologies, working in the same marketplace on an international level and are able to deliver sustainability using a product or consultation, subscription and events based model.

Future Options

42. The Review concluded that ICELE is unsustainable using the current model without significant restructuring.

43. The Review identified a failure to have::

• a more robust and streamlined programme management

• clear roles and responsibilities for team members

• a lack of alignment of ICELE targets with the CLG work

• a lack of clear processes for work (i.e., regular updating of the website)

• a failure to develop a thorough sustainability plan

44. Options therefore are:

i. Closure of the Centre with an immediate review during the current transition period to establish what happens to the successful activities, tools and information provided by the Centre.

ii. Maintaining the Centre with direct funding from CLG on the current unsustainable basis

iii. Re-establishing the Centre as an independent partnership body incorporating CLG as the sponsor, local authorities, private sector, voluntary/charity sector and academia with incorporation of the recommended criteria from the Review.

45. We recommended option (i) to close ICELE.

Consideration

46. ICELE is run on a tri-partisan basis with active involvement from the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour Party representatives.

47. The forthcoming Empowerment White Paper will set out our broad intentions to utilize new technologies to support empowerment but will not commit us to a specific funding or delivery model at this stage and reinforces the need to consult more widely on possible funding and delivery options with both commercial, third sector providers and other Government Departments. Social and community media will be one aspect of the work in the White Paper. We need to be mindful that this is often citizen driven and will probably move away from using any Departmental funded applications.

48. The issue of using ICT for engagement practices has demonstrated that technology is evolving at a fast pace and technologies previously invested in and evaluated often relate to Web 1.0 transactional services when demand is moving towards the growth of more web 2.0 interactive services such as those within the social media environment. The Department therefore accepts the need to adopt a more flexible approach to the use of technology rather than a prescriptive methodology or list of products for use by local authorities and communities. Since announcing the Empowerment White Paper, the Department has received a number of proposals from organisations. In addition, since publication of the open letter from ICELE, we have also received enquiries about individual tools and products. This shows that this is a demonstrable demand to take forward some aspects of the delivery previously undertaken by ICELE. Any such proposals will require further evaluation, consultation and consideration before any decision is made.

49. If ICELE is closed, the existing information and some of the more sustainable products will need to be transferred elsewhere if feasible to do so. An example would be to transfer the existing information on the website numbering several thousand pages of content to another web portal.

50. Similarly, if VOICE was unable to continue via ICELE, then alternative platforms may need to be procured by clients at a cost estimated to be £50-80K each, including government departments. You have already received recent correspondence (PD/013706/08) from one council using the product raising their concerns about possible closure. Some of the contractual arrangements with VOICE clients are due for renewal, any resolution on the future of VOICE would be paramount as part of a review of ICELE tools and products.

51.

Finance

52. The requested amount of funding for ICELE to continue is a minimum of £700,000 over the next two years. Such a sum is considered unreasonable as there is no demonstrable guarantee of sustainability or value for money in continuing to sponsor the centre merely to be a conduit and promotion tool for recent activities of local e-democracy.

53. Funding is currently available from the existing Local eGov programme budget if the decision to fund ICELE or component parts were considered desirable. Given the interest received, it seems better value for money can be achieved and sustainability more viable to fund certain successful parts of ICELE at considerably reduced cost in partnership with third sector or private sector suppliers. One example is .uk, a directory of all councillors in the UK, which could be funded for a few thousand pounds in partnership with the LGA but without the added burden of large programme management costs of the host organisation specifically funded for the purpose of local e-democracy.

54. Prior to closure of the Centre, the costs of moving continuing successful elements will be considered based on further investigation and evaluation. There would be legal issues to consider, license agreements to be funded and this would be subject of a further submission once these factors were looked at in more detail.

Communications

55. Agreed lines have been issued on the subject of ICELE pending a decision. Lines to take on the decision to close ICELE are provided in Appendix E.

56. Due to the nature of local e-democracy being highly political and very active in the blogosphere and social media, the reasons for the decision would be quickly communicated on the leading blogs and discussion forums discussing e-democracy thereby ensuring there was no confusion or misrepresentation.

Legal

57. The issue of implications for transfer of any component parts of the ICELE portfolio will be subject to specialist legal guidance, probably from external lawyers, such as Eversheds, who have been used for transfer of other parts of the e-Government portfolio over the past two years. It is hoped that where tools were open source that these will continue to be made available through the appropriate channel in future. Where items are subject to license we would need appropriate agreements established for the necessary transfer and guarantees of low costs for local authorities maintained.

58. There are a number of licences in operation for products available through ICELE. Currently the Blogging Platform is licensed for use until the end of July 2008; the VOICE platform is licensed until the end of September 2008; the ICELE website and content is licensed until October 2008 and the license for hardback copy provision of training guides is due for renewal at the end of June 2008.

Copies:

Hazel Blears

Yvette Cooper

John Healey

Iain Wright

Baroness Andrews

Peter Housden

Joe Montgomery

Chris Wormald

Edna Robinson

Andrew Campbell

David Rossington

John Shield

Deb Heenan

Stuart Hoggan

Andrea Ledward

Henry Tam

Bert Provan

Peter Blair

Neil Reeder

Iain Sear

Jaime Rose

Alasdair Frew

Jessica Bray

Heather Monroe

Sarah Southerton

Simon Berry

Emma Hagan

Special Advisers (DCLG)

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