HomeAbout EPRIAbout EPRI knowledgeSitemapContact |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Recommendations
Representatives
Party Actors
Legislators
Parliaments
Recommendations
This study has provided a range of insights into the activities and perceptions of a specific group of ‘early adopter’ parliamentarians, concerning their use of ICTs. While there are limitless opportunities for encouraging and building on the success of, and learning from the limitations or failings arising from, their use of ICTs, only a few are summarised below.
Representatives
ICTs offer parliamentary representatives the opportunity for better
representation, in terms of quality and quantity. This opportunity will
only be realised however, through a strong commitment to research,
design, creation, and use of optimised processes, the cornerstones of
which are:
- Better management of public expectations, formally setting their expectations in terms of possible areas and courses of action, response times, and likely outcomes. This in not a particularly complicated ‘informational’ task, and could be easily achieved by either individual MPs at the local level, or by the Parliaments themselves, implemented through a variety of on- and offline channels.
- Better organisation and management of online relationships – enabling parliamentarians to have regular, direct contact with their citizens, to gain the required understanding of their concerns and interests, and to successfully represent these interests and concerns in the policy and legislative arena, or otherwise clearly demonstrate why this has not been done. All this can be significantly supported through the conception and design of online/mobile applications, with strong training, monitoring and support.
- Create more transparency in the representation process – both on the part of the elected representative and their political party context, and on the part of participating citizens and organisations. The credibility problems experienced by parliamentarians in the eyes of their voters, rests in part with the lack of transparency of decision making processes – voters not understanding why policy or legislative proposals are on the agenda or not, and how they are formed or influenced. On the other hand, the parliamentarians surveyed expressed strong concerns over the increasing ICT-enabled abuse by spammers or organised campaigning groups, which overload or distort the representative process. The consequent mistrust from both sides could be alleviated using ICTs (among other channels) through the development of an almost real-time representation of policy and legislative decision making practices, demonstrating and explaining all inputs and quantifying or evaluating influences. Tools to better identify measure and display the depth and breadth of support for particular perspectives (or lack of it), among the public or specific concerned parties, would be a significant improvement in talking this credibility problem.
- Clearly efforts must be oriented to reforming the culture of representation, moving the ‘political representation’ back into the foreground of social interaction, through opening up new representational channels and encouraging, guiding and supporting the participation of new users and groups.
Party Actors
Political parties are taking advantage of ICTs, only to the extent
their competitive electoral environments demand. Parliamentarians could
lead by example, (rather than being led by the limitations of their
parties) to better integrate ICTs into their work where they can add
democratic value.
- Party actors should develop strategies which encourage and support the consultation, engagement and participation of their members and activists. ICTs can be used to invigorate party democracy, supporting internal debate, and the expression of a variety of viewpoints, and the take up of consultation-based policy development processes.
- In informational terms, parliamentarians as Party Actors can clearly better present, explain, broadcast and narrowcast their views, policies, activities and results to their audiences, using ICTs. Some parliamentarians have already incorporated ICTs into their individual (and party) communications strategies but many have not, or not taking advantage of the customisation possibilities to talk appropriately to different audiences. These opportunities exist not only in terms of what parliamentarians are ready to develop themselves, but also taking advantage of existing third party opportunities or systems. Some parliaments have enabled their parliamentarians to set up ‘party customisation’ options in their outbound communications management systems. This type of co-habitation makes not only good financial or technical sense, but good political sense, helping to reduce the confusion many citizens feel about their political systems.
Legislators
Legislators clearly need to address their information overload
problems, many related as much to questions of information access and
management as to technological infrastructure – or the conversation
between the two. In addressing this large and unwieldy area, some
pointers, based on the concerns of those parliamentarians surveyed, may
be of value:
- An examination and possibly evaluation of the impact of quantity, quality, variety, ‘representativeness’ and reliability of information inputs or expertise, on the quality of legislative output, would be useful. This would ascertain the nature and consequences of the problem, as well as assist in the development of a solution. This understanding is central to be able to manage, prioritise, balance and ‘weight’ information inputs accordingly, in decision making processes.
- The development and integration of official consultation channels into parliamentary decision making processes, will support the overall efficacy and democratic value their work. Such steps have been taken in several parliaments on an experimental, ad hoc, basis, but these efforts, once plentiful, have stagnated, and learnings have not been shared.
- Furthermore, improved transparency of the work of the Legislator would not only help parliamentarians to communicate the status and results of their legislative work, but encourage and support the participation of relevant inputs.
Parliaments
This study has shown that there are many challenges and opportunities,
raised by these early adopters, but experienced by many more, which
invite parliaments to act.
- Mobility – Remote (& wireless) working
One of the main areas where parliaments
can support their members in their take-up and use of ICTs is mobility.
Parliamentarians complain not of their lack of equipment, but of the
lack of supporting infrastructure which enables them to work remotely.
This mainly refers to the lack of external access to intranets
containing the essential documentation, groupware, parliamentary
information, and communications tools connecting their offices. Further
problems are encountered with the lack of compatibility of their mobile
devices, when they return to parliament. This mobility applies to
within, as well as beyond the parliaments, with several calls for
wireless networking capability within their parliaments.
- Consultation systems
Building on the transparency and
information issues, Parliaments should research and establish official
consultation mechanisms and procedures for the various levels or stages
of parliamentary activity. Many of the recent experiments in ICT
enabled consultations concern committee-stage evidence collecting, or
initiative-stage petitions, and feedback gathering for a
post-legislative review of implementation. There is already a wide
ranging experience among parliaments (world-wide) on the subject of
(e-) consultation. This experience should be gathered, analysed and
developed into a formal proposal for debate, and adoption among the
parliamentary community.
- Training
Many parliaments are moving swiftly in
the direction of a ‘paperless parliament’. As the use of ICTs spreads
within parliaments, so does the training requirement. The necessary
training is not simply the ‘how to use ICTs’, but more importantly
should enable parliamentarians to understand, and later take advantage
of, the full potential of the new tools and technologies. Our study has
shown a surprising absence of imagination in the use of these
technologies (i.e. mainly process modernisation rather that
innovation). Furthermore, parliamentarians apparently lack an exposure
not just to the communications practices and opportunities to which
their citizens are accustomed, but also the potential abuses to which
they might be subject. With the use of new technology comes a cultural
shift – not simply a process modernisation. Members of Parliament need
more than a lesson in using Microsoft Outlook, to master this new
environment.
- Spam and email management
Of the specific applications or systems
frequently suggested by those surveyed, spam and email management was
uppermost. Spam filtering systems and technologies are already in place
in most parliaments, but are considered far from satisfactory. While
high levels of spam protection are undoubtedly required, no system has
proven to be watertight. In any case, in a democratic context, multiple
and various voices are assets to be cherished, not shut out. Therefore
an essential part of the solution is assisting parliamentarians in
their coping strategies – identifying best practice, and training their
staff to manage what may indeed prove to be a necessary evil.
- Information management, overload and presentation
Parliaments are responsible for
internal information management as well as external presentation of
information. The information overload problem encountered by their
Members inside, is as much a responsibility of the institution, as the
confusion and lack of transparency experienced by their citizens
outside.
Parliaments are already involved in
trying to solve the ‘overload’ problem, but usually from a technical or
capacity perspective. There is an obvious parallel with this situation:
Wider motorways lead to more traffic. Rather than building better
motorways, parliaments need to rethink their approach to information,
better understanding what the essential informational requirements are,
and reviewing strategies to obtain and guarantee access to this
In terms of external information provision, Parliaments need to be involved in how their individual parliamentarians and political groups or parties inform and communicate with the outside world. As previously referred to, systems which enable Members to have a basic standardised communications practices, with the possibility for group or individual customisation, will go a long way to help diminish the confusing and opaque nature of parliaments and governance. Moreover, parliaments should explore and develop ways of representing their activities, the considered or influencing factors and outcomes, in an accessible way, to their publics.
In terms of external information provision, Parliaments need to be involved in how their individual parliamentarians and political groups or parties inform and communicate with the outside world. As previously referred to, systems which enable Members to have a basic standardised communications practices, with the possibility for group or individual customisation, will go a long way to help diminish the confusing and opaque nature of parliaments and governance. Moreover, parliaments should explore and develop ways of representing their activities, the considered or influencing factors and outcomes, in an accessible way, to their publics.
|
Recent events Knowledge base Newsfeed FAQ Links Forum ICT Glossary |
|
EPRI secretariat c/o Teleport Sachsen-Anhalt GmbH EPRI secretariat Steinfeldstr. 5 D-39179 Barleben Germany Email: info@epri.org www.epri.org |
