Elected Mayors assume a far more powerful role than their traditional counterparts, whose role is largely ceremonial. Currently there are thirteen directly elected Mayors in England including Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. A few of the early Elected Mayors created of a media sensation; Hartlepool voted in H’Angus the Monkey and Middlesbrough elected Ray “Robocop” Mallon, a famously hard-line ex-police chief.
If 5% of voters sign a petition saying that they want an Elected Mayor, the Local Government Act 2000 requires the Local Authority to hold a referendum.
E-petitons are starting to be used to gather support to try to trigger councils to act.
With 15,000+ signatures still required, the recent Bristol Mayoral Referendum Campaign appears to have stalled. However, a new Mayoral Campaign in Swindon appears to be using a more ‘networked’ Web 2.0 approach with links in Facebook and in local blogs.
How long will it be before one of these online petitions is successful?
South Norfolk District Council has appointed Sandra Dineen as their new Chief Executive as a result of advertising the job on YouTube. This “excellent” Authority (as rated by the Audit Commission) attracted coverage from The Sun newspaper for saving an estimated £50,000 in recruitment costs. The YouTube “advert” cost £250 and attracted 1,764 applicants
Many Council's are currently looking at Workforce Management Strategies to bring more young people into their organisations. Advertising in this way may be a really good solution.
Web 2.0 provides Government and Councils with an unprecedented opportunity to engage with citizens, not just as customers but also as partners in the creation and delivery of online public services. But whereas Web 2.0 is democratic, creative and rapidly changing and is owned by the community, e-Gov is top-down, bureaucratic, risk-averse and is often painfully slow to deliver anything. The traditional ‘command and control’ e-Gov mind-set must be changed if the public sector is to treat Web 2.0 as anything other than Web-too-Risky.
There are glimmers of hope. The Prime Minister, leading politicians and “e-democracy” councils, such as Bristol, are championing new online approaches to citizen engagement. But in many cases, on line media is simply being incorporated into existing corporate communications messages, which is more Web 1.5 than Web 2.0. Going beyond this stage requires a leap of faith. But if we fail to empower employees and communities to work together effectively, how else will we develop the next generation of on line public services and public servants?
For councils, the consequences of not engaging with Web 2.0 will be a growing digital divide. But this time it will be councils who are disadvantaged, marginalised and excluded from the collective benefits of Web 2.0. Digitally literate citizens and communities will happily colonize the new virtual world without them.
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