The Ministry of Justice* Innovations Fund (that brought you CivicSurf or Cllr 2.0 as it was) is back. It’s bigger than ever with £150,000 to be spent developing new ideas. Go to www.buidlingdemocracy.co.uk for the details. There is a difference this year. Instead of only being able to submit applications Read more
Michelle emailed me again. She wanted to tell me a little story about her and Barack backstage at the Democratic Convention in 2004 and how she’d broken the tension with a private joke. Barack likes to tell a story about the two of us standing backstage before his speech at Read more
A while back I posted about a Consultation Consultation. BERR yesterday published their new guidelines for Central Government consultations to come into force in November 2008. The new Code of Practice on Consultation can be downloaded from the BERR site. "This Code is based on the results of a review Read more
OK, we can’t have her celebrity or looks but hats off to Queen Rania of Jordan who has been running an interesting YouTube project for the last few months. Back in April she posted a video on the Queen Rania channel asking for people to post questions about the stereotypes Read more
Just in time for the government’s new youth crime plan, comes fascinating research from Manchester University, who’ve taken the trouble to work closely with young people involved in gangs. What they’ve found challenges the picture normally painted of gangs and suggests that the police approach is ‘fatally flawed’ and risks pushing young people into the arms of gangs.
Sokwanele, a Civic Action Support Group in Zimbabwe, has used Twitter to bring a Flickr group of pictures to the attention of the Prime Minister via his Web team at 10 Downing Street. The pictures are powerful. Sokwanele are using lots of Web2.0 tools to bring their message to a Read more
According to the LGA’s FirstOnline site: Councils would have a new duty to promote democracy, under government plans announced this week. Communities secretary Hazel Blears said she wanted every council to run lively campaigns to explain the voting system and encourage first time voters. I’m glad that democracy is going Read more
Plain English, £20,000 prize fund for development, minimal rules, transparency. Surely this can’t be government? But it is. The Power of Information Task Force has launched a competition to get good ideas from the public on how best to reuse public information. Brilliant. Well Done. Click on the button and Read more
[political disengagement] is a symptom of a deep-seated feeling that everything in the world is basically safe and that life will more or less carry on as usual whatever party is in power. Baroness Murphy has sparked some debate over at the very excellent Lords of the Blog. Read the Read more