311

There's a lot of talk of the single non-emergency line number. Introduced by Michael Bloomberg in New York in the form of 311, Demos is now recommending that the government of New Zealand try it out. With a population that's less than London's it may just work. Our own government here in the UK is also exploring the idea of a single phone line for non-emergencies. First mooted in Transformational Government in 2005, it is now being considered as part of the channel review that was announced in the 2006 Budget. That's due to report in autumn, so watch this space. For an interesting discussion, see Stephen Johnson writing about 311 in Wired. Concerns about such a service being 'captured' by particular groups of people are discussed on Accidental Deliberations.

Paul Miller

I have to admit I only know a bit about 311 but I wonder whether actually it needs the urban density of New York to work well. Because of the complexity, diversity and sheer numbers of people who use the service it's pretty difficult to 'game the system' but maybe in lower density areas (like much of New Zealand) it might be more prone to problems.

Chris Wicks

A Police non-emergency number (http://www.101.gov.uk) has recently been rolled out. I think this is a great idea, but some are saying that citizens shouldn't have to decide whether it's a genuine emergency or not.IMHO, the problems facing a nationwide 311 are less related to population density than to diversity of service providers. Nearly all public services in New York are provided by departments of the city, so it's easier to put an umbrella over them. Rolling 311 out to the UK (for example) would involve coordinating all the local authorities, devolved administrations and third sector bodies who provide essential services. It's taking a hell of a lot of effort to pull limited services together on DirectGov (http://www.direct.gov.uk), so doing it with a call centre would be even trickier.

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