How Kingston led the way with e-petitions
I'm speaking on e-petitions soon at a conference in Edinburgh.
That's a variant on coals-to-Newcastle, since the first government in the world to introduce online petitions was the Scottish Parliament. The system was developed for them by the International Teledemocracy Centre at Napier University, in Edinburgh. (Its name indicates that the ITC was founded before the term 'e-democracy' was coined)
Following that success, in 2004 the ITC contacted the National Project for Local e-Democracy, which I was chairing, to ask if we would like to pilot e-petitions in local authorities. I volunteered Kingston, and Bristol joined us.
That was how the very first local government e-petitioning system was set up in Kingston. Since there has been national, and indeed international, interest in the project.
But I have to say that it was accepted in Kingston with a shrug of the shoulder - it just seemed an obvious extension of Kingston's existing and well-used petitioning process, and fitted in well with our innovative e-government practices. Kingston had, and still has, a robust process for handling petitions which means that they are given serious consideration by both officers and councillors, so the online versions did not require any major changes in practice.
Last week the Department of Communities and Local Government published some very substantial research with the title "Empowering communities to influence local decision making". I'm pleased to say that it Kingston gets some very positive mentions in the chapter on petitions.
You can download the full pdf file by clicking here.
Comments: 2
For example, I'm sure you were aware of the petition to keep Tudor Library which led to a change of policy. Even on the list that is given, you are not correct. For example, the Council is acting on the SCA, as requested, with a report coming to Exec shortly.
There have been plenty more examples of cases where a petition has drawn the Council's attention to a problem, and than action has been taken.
In one of the often quoted examples - the petition to Save the Magic Roundabout - the petitioner had actually misunderstood the reasons why it was closing (ie lack of trustees, not lack of funding), so in one sense the petition was invalid. But it generated a debate and gace young people the chance to state how much they valued the service. The subsequent campaign to keep this charity afloat united the press, councillors and young people and a solution was eventually found.
My final point, though, is this. A petition is not a referendum. Petitions only give one side of a story, and sometimes there are other needs that have to be met as well. The one thing that a petition (at least in Kingston) does is to get an item placed on an agenda and start a discussion around an issue. The petitioner becomes part of the solution, but in the end it is the elected members who have to balance the needs of all members of the public and not just those who have made their voices heard.
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