Open Up! How to “Chairify” DemocracyTracy Green

Parliamentary Digital Service@greentrac

introduction

• Picture of Parliament

• Tweak it to show paper moving to digital in the middle

How Parliament works… in 60 seconds

http://www.parliament.uk/education/teaching-resources-lesson-plans/how-parliament-works-60-secs/

The Challenge

”The internet has fundamentally changed the structure of all organisations

and industries”

Mike Bracken, Head of the Government Digital Service

• Picture of russell brand – overlaid with stats from Hansard society audit of political engagement

“Only 16% of 18 to 24 year olds in the UK say they are

certain to vote in the general election”

Hansard Society Audit of Political Engagement 2015

http://www.auditofpoliticalengagement.org/media/reports/Audit-of-Political-Engagement-12-2015.pdf

• Picture of Magna Carta at Runnymead

• Picture of Tiff, Charlie and Sym on their tour

http://www.digitaldemocracy.parliament.uk/

The Changes

Review of Online Services

“the debate as to which medium would be used to deliver significant

computer applications and information services to users is over, and the internet has emerged as the

winner.”

Tom Steinberg, mySociety, Review of Parliament’s Online Services, 2014

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/news/2014/mysociety-report-on-online-services.pdf

Digital Democracy Commission

“Technology in itself is not a panacea and it will not in itself correct existing

practices…we need to look beyond new digital tools to existing processes that do

and do not work, and then critically explore how technology can help us to

make democracy work better .”

Democratic Society

http://www.digitaldemocracy.parliament.uk/

• By 2020…

• Ensure people understand what Parliament does

• Be fully interactive and digital

• New forum for public participation

• Online voting as an option for UK voters

• All published information and footage available as open data

Leadership

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

"Unless we have an open, neutral internet we can rely on without worrying about what's happening at the back door, we can't have open government, good democracy, good healthcare, connected communities and diversity of culture. It's not naive to think we can have that, but it is naive to think we can just sit back and get it.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_a_magna_carta_for_the_web?language=en

Martha Lane-Fox

“There has been a reinvention of the internet and the behaviour of users in the last few years. Digital Services are now more agile, open and cheaper. To take advantage of these changes, government needs to move to a ‘service culture’ putting the needs of citizens ahead of those of departments”

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/60993/Martha_20Lane_20Fox_s_20letter_20to_20Francis_20Maude_2014th_20Oct_202010.pdf

A few more champions

https://www.mysociety.org/

And how they working with others

http://poplus.org/

Grass roots

https://democracyclub.org.uk/

http://www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com/

https://represent.cc/#!/

Building momentum for change

http://accountabilityhack.org/

http://hacks.rewiredstate.org/events/acchack14

Changing how we work

http://www.data.parliament.uk/

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/commons-order-papers/id691958985?mt=8

Digital capability

• Picture from one of the exploring digital sessions

And the new Parliament?

Let’s make demoracy as easy to use as sitting

on a chair!

Thank you@greentrac