Mary Reid

I was invited to contribute to the e-Government Bulletin blog, so I wrote a piece about e-petitions, inspired by the 1.7 million signatures against road pricing on the petition on the 10 Downing Street site.  

My article has produced some reactions around the e-democracy village. Since it was largely about Kingston, I'll repeat it in full here...

Local e-petitions

The panicky reaction to the million strong petition on the No 10 site raises a wry smile in local government. The democratic impact of e-petitions, and of petitions in general, is rather more positive from where I stand.

Kingston upon Thames pioneered e-petitions a couple of years ago and they are still going strong. See them on http://epetitions.kingston.gov.uk/.

The main difference between our petitions (whether online or on paper) and those delivered to No 10 is that any petition placed before the Council MUST be considered by one of the committees, if it is about anything for which the Council has responsibility. The petitioner has the right to speak to full Council when presenting a petition and again when it comes before a committee.

Petitions are taken seriously and officer time is devoted to researching and reporting on the issues raised.

Facetious, vexatious or irrelevant petitions are ruled out right from the start. The petitioner is given helpful guidance, on a one-to-one level, about the wording of a petition and where it should be presented before it is posted. Each petition is then tracked so that visitors to the site can find out when it is being discussed and the outcome.

One interesting aspect of our e-petitioning system is the way it has empowered young people to campaign on issues. The No 10 petitioning site is simple and transparent, but it is clear that there is no back office system in place to actually deal with the issues raised. The astonishing number of petitions that have been listed demonstrate how few opportunities citizens have to express their views to Westminster. Sadly, No 10 seems to think that all they need to provide is a graffiti wall, but with no obligation to read what is written on it.

Central government really does have something to learn from local government about how to respond when citizen participation is encouraged.