MPs' money to boost understanding of political process - 3 comments

Paul Evans, transpero.net, and Designing for Civil Society have already covered the vote (a fortnight ago, I admit) by MPs for a £3 million allowance to boost the "public understanding of Parliament" through web-sites (and other things). Still, here are a few thoughts of my own.

Firstly, as for the amount of money on offer, £3 million would be a bargain if it really did improve the public understanding of Parliament, or at least, the political process, the making of policy, the scrutiny of bills and government business, etc.

Expressed, however, as £10,000 per MP, it does sound high. Perhaps I'm missing something, but if I can host Bloggers4Labour (at a pinch, I hear you cry) for £1,000 per year, why should the running costs of any single MP's site be so very much higher?

I'd like to criticise the idea that the £3 million must be divided equally, rather than invested in a system (which, in the guise of TheyWorkForYou, already provides a sound basis for future development) upon which all MPs could host their presence. This has the following advantages: first and foremost, it reduces the amount of money spent on web design/web-development: on the wages of those who offer money for old rope, as well as the evenings and weekends of keen youngsters.

This isn't simply about the costs of web development: there should be a strategy - or, at the very least, guidance - on best practice in civic and political engagement. What the online civic/political world is crying out for is a mechanism through which electors and elected can maintain an informed, committed conversation as equals. The vast bulk of web designers, in my experience, know about CSS, graphics,"web usability", and perhaps how to embed a video widget or integrate a blog, but they lack a vision of how a site can, or should, be used to boost popular engagement. MPs are more likely to have a sense of that vision, but are constrained by their inability to speak the same "technical" language as designers. Furthermore, by being placed on a level playing-field, MPs could receive instructions together on making the best of the facilities provided.

I do have a few ideas for what a new-look, hosted, MP web-site would offer (DfCS offer six, most of which I'd mildly go along with), which I might talk about in future, but such a site would be blog-based, albeit with a narrower audience, and much closer interaction and commitment than is usually talked about. I would also try to work around Jack Straw's concerns that sites would simply turn into advertisements and exhortations for the MP and/or party in question (helped, perhaps, by the fact that such things would probably carry little weight with the public), so that the planned restrictions that Paulie rightly decries could ultimately be lifted.

In the meantime, surely organisations like TheyWorkForYou and MySociety should be lobbying in a similar kind of way to convince the government/individual MPs/groups of MPs to make the very best use of this opportunity, and the money as/when it arrives?