Duncan O'Leary
Duncan works on projects looking at public services, skills and work.
at 11:01am
on Monday, 26th February 2007
…and then wait endlessly for it to be fixed I imagine.
It’ll be interesting to see what they else they do with the fact they have all that data in one place. Problem hotspots? Most responsive councils? Your council’s performance over time?
Neighbourhood Fix-it, apparently. It’s a new website from the evil geniuses at MySociety, which looks similar to New York’s 311 number.
The idea is simple:
- See a problem
- Enter a postcode or street name and area;
- Locate the problem on a high-scale map;
- Enter details of the problem;
- Submit to your council through the website
…and then wait endlessly for it to be fixed I imagine.
It’ll be interesting to see what they else they do with the fact they have all that data in one place. Problem hotspots? Most responsive councils? Your council’s performance over time?
And it looks like the government is getting in on the act too with 101.gov.uk. This also seems like a useful idea: apparently around 10 million 999 calls to the police were made in 2004, but 70% were not for genuine emergencies. So now there is 101 for all those important, but non-essential calls. It’s being piloted in five areas now.
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'Problem hotspots' and 'performance over time' were just some of the deeper elements I included when I recommended an idea very similar to the MySociety one in a Westminster Council innovation competition a year or two back (after seeing it announced on the Demos blog!). My idea was 'Highly Commended' in the end :- )
Here's what I sent to Westminster:
'Living Community Map and fault-reporting: Council 2.0' is a simple
online map of Westminster, where residents, Councillors, council staff -
even visitors - can pinpoint the location of problems they have
encountered. Residents would thus act as the 'eyes of the community',
with the resulting indicators encouraging partnership, civic
responsibility, accountability and discussion.
The map's interactivity would even make this a fun citizenship-building
activity for schools.
Problems to be targeted might include: graffiti, damaged street
furniture, speeding traffic, missing street signs, broken pavements,
anti-social behaviour, abandoned vehicles, dumped rubbish, needle finds,
car crime etc.
Viewing the map's indicators over time would enable the Council, and
residents, to intervene to nip emerging problem 'hot spots' in the bud,
and also to assess the impact of interventions.
I envisage a second stage where more complex experiences - including
positive ones, to give balance - could also be added to the map's
layers: feeling unsafe, 'walkability', enjoyment of sport, arts,
culture, shopping, and environment etc.
A whole exciting new way to visualise community health in real-time
would emerge (akin to shifting weather report isobars).
Possible additions: automatic e-mail notification to responsible Council
staff when a new problem is posted onto the map.
Tell us why this idea is innovative:
The council would no longer be 'flying blind' as the Living Community
Map potentially brings all Westminster residents into a real-time mutual
learning loop with it. This has never been tried before. Though elements
of it exist, no-one seems to have thought to integrate them all, or to
ask the public to get so centrally involved in this way. Westminster
could take the lead nationally (even internationally), whilst also
reaping efficiency rewards from better intelligence and effective
targeting as more people get mapping their community. It's a step beyond
costly and ineffective consultations that are often viewed with
cynicism.
Is your idea specific to a location or city-wide?
Start in one neighbourhood that is eager, then roll-out across
Westminster... and the UK.
Who will your idea affect?
Everyone who walks, drives, works or lives in Westminster.
Why should your idea be implemented?
An inexorable rise in civic responsibility, and greater efficiency and
targeting of council efforts, would be the result of this online
collaboration and learning initiative.
[PS I contacted Tom at MySociety about this idea a while ago - it turned out they had a very similar idea on the back-burner. Great to see it finally go live! And, of course, I hope that all the visual aspects, changes over time, and more complex and 'positive' experiences too might one day somehow be included on such a community map...].
Matthew Mezey
[And as an aside, who cares if it didn't win the competition - why didn't they just get on with it anyway...?]
The ideas that came above mine in the 'Westminster Innovate' ('Innovation: cities of the future 2006') competition were:
1 Nearest Toilet Text Service (winning individual entry and overall winner). "You need to go. But where?..."
2. Adopt an Area (winning group entry)
Mobilising local interest groups like school children to tidy public areas [this sounds exactly the same as someone's idea I published many years ago, when I worked at the Institute for Social Inventions, with the late Nicholas Albery - if so it should be on the www.globalideasbank.org website)
3. Connecting the Community (winning Council staff entry)
Staff to carry out five days of voluntary work per year.
These ideas are pretty tame and simple in comparison with what I suggested - which is a pretty good reason for them to win, I guess.
I don't know whether Westminster Council put any of these three ideas into action.
Though I think Westminster's idea to tap into (around 200) people's creative ideas with a competition was great (with judges including Wayne Hemingway), and the website (now offline) was great too, their follow-up was crap - in my case. They didn't even tell me I was one of the three 'Highly Commended' ideas when I contacted them later on to find out whatever had happened with their competition. I only found out by chance...
I notice that I seem to somehow be thinking on the same wavelength as MySociety - I spotted that their top upcoming idea to be put into action (in 2007?) is some kind of automated FOI request generator etc. This was an idea I proposed to the knowledge professionals organisation I work for in 2000, I think. It fell on deaf ears, sadly...
Maybe Demos could launch a national innovations competition around some pressing issue that could have real local applications (even do it alongside MySociety, the Institute for Social Inventions and related orgs; perhaps even that BBC local campaigns organising website, if it's still running).
Matthew