A Bill requiring councils in England and Wales to provide local residents with a facility to lodge electronic petitions, and to respond to such petitions, is set to be passed into law after moving to what is likely to become its final Parliamentary stage last week.
Under the ‘Local democracy, economic development and construction Bill’ (http://bit.ly/1nEC4Z), councils will be obliged to provide an e-petition facility and publish schemes for both electronic and traditional petitions, to acknowledge any petition to its organiser, and to offer a response, all of which should be published online.
Local authorities must also consider holding a debate for any petition which requests it.
The Bill – first published in December 2008 with the aim of increasing democracy at a community level – has now passed its third reading in the House of Commons, moving to the House of Lords for final consideration of amendments. Assuming the Lords accept the amendments, the Bill will come into force in Spring 2010.
To support local authorities in implementing their new duties, a petitions network for expert practitioners is being established by a consortium of Bristol City Council, North Lincolnshire Council and the Hansard Society, which will form the basis of an online ‘community of practice’ on the local government Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) portal (
http://www.idea.gov.uk ).
The project will showcase six councils with a proven track record in responding to petitions, who will help develop guidance and offer support to other local authorities.
Fraser Henderson, project manager for the new network, said the Bill will formalise the e-petition process and make it easier for local authorities to decide on appropriate responses to petitions. He said that the bill will also allow online community engagement, producing wider opportunities for dialogue and participation between those who sign the petitions, with the possibility of integrating webcasts and other online media into the process.
Meanwhile a debate took place in the Scottish Parliament last month on the body’s own e-petitioning system (http://bit.ly/17slHm). Some of the ideas discussed by politicians included adding a facility for text messaging support for a petition and providing wider publicity for the e-petitions process.
that’s fine for urban areas, but 90% of the uk land mass which holds 40% of the people still can’t get decent enough broadband to engage in this way.
This is due to obsolete copper in a victorian phone network. So it is no use government expecting engagement when the infrastructure won’t support it.
The same areas that have no broadband also have limited mobile access so people can’t even text the votes to petitions until they are in an area with connectivity. just sayin.