QUESTION TIME - WHAT WOULD YOU ASK YOUR COUNCIL?
An idea developed at Transformed by You on Campus
What is the problem?
‘Local government do not know what or listen to what the citizens want or need’. Citizens want a real, open, transparent conversation (“we want a dialogue not a monologue”) with local government on subjects that matter to communities, as voted on by the communities.
The general public
How would the idea work?
Local government needs to find a way of collecting content from multiple channels (Twitter, on the phone, via email, etc) in the community, and has to be very searchable – using tools similar to Amazon.
What is needed to make this idea successful?
Less calls from the public about problems that have already been dealt with, more engagement with the community on what they want/need, could potentially save money
What can be done to make the idea successful?
The group didn’t come up with a prototype as such, but the council champions are looking further to discuss how realisable their idea was.
A special thank you to a picture of an idea from http://transformedbyyou.uservoice.com.
I'd be interested to see how many people actually *want* to talk to their council at all.
I think there is a stance of "do your jobs, leave me out of it" (not in a negative way).
People often say, especially around elections, "I've not spoken to my MP since he came knocking 4 years ago - why should I vote for him?"
The obivous question is - "if you had something to say why didn't you approach him? and if you didn't have an opionion then where's the problem?"
I know that I only contact my council if something goes wrong (my recycling not being collected was the last time).
Trying to really engage people is going to be tough, because of this sort of mind-set.
I'm not saying it's not worthwhile, but I think each authority should look carefully at all of their interaction types - un-coordinated over-compensating will likely push people even further away.