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Renewing Democracy with 'E-Community Councils'Ann Macintosh and Andy McKay-HubbardPage 1 ¦ Page 2 ¦ Page 3 ¦ Printer-friendly version To address this digital divide, much emphasis has been placed on expanding the communication infrastructure, in particular extending the availability of broadband services. However, problems attached to the Digital Divide are not only related to a lack of telecommunications infrastructure, but to poverty, lack of awareness, and low skill levels [8]. Recognising this, a number of projects have been initiated in Scotland concerned with access to ICT, skills to use ICT and content to motivate use of ICTs [9]. This project is not intending to replicate this work but rather learn from it. International, national and local governments and agencies make decisions which fundamentally affect the lives of citizens. Organisational complexity and an increasing pace of change are making it increasingly difficult for individuals and community groups to even know about, far less engage in, decision making processes. Communities require easy to use ways of accessing and sharing information and ideas, responding to consultations and participating in policy formulation. The rapidly expanding public access to the internet offers an opportunity to individuals and community groups to discuss issues together and lobby government for policy changes. 3. The E-Community CouncilCommunity councils are the local tier of the statutory framework of democracy in Scotland. They are small, local groups and there are 1160 Community Councils across Scotland. They typically each have 12 elected members who represent a small population spread across both small and large geographical areas, depending on the urban or rural nature of their location. Community Councils are by law, made up of members of their own community. As such they have direct access to and from their constituents at a more detailed daily level than most politicians or local authority councillors. They live in the community they serve, know personally many of the issues and can readily judge the impact of new or changed policies and suggestions from government. Currently they represent their constituents as best they can, relying on word-of-mouth and may therefore not be as inclusive as they otherwise might be. They are often given little time to consider fairly major proposals before their considered input is required. They interact with neighbouring Community Councils, local groups and national organisations (e.g. the ASCC or Association of Scottish Community Councils). There is a need for better mechanisms for them to be consulted as representing their neighbourhoods, but further for them to have tools to enable them to reach their constituents. Democracy is and should be a bottom-up process. The project is developing a “community e-democracy model” supported by “community e-democracy tools” that will help to achieve the kind of dialogue and engagement between Community Councils and local communities that will support a broad range of work. The community e-democracy model is:
The community e-democracy tools are being developed so as to support agencies to engage with individuals and groups by facilitating:
Footnotes8. Wilhem, Anthony, 2000. Democracy in the digital age: Challenges to political life in cyberspace. Routledge, London. return 9. Malina, A., and Macintosh, A., 2003. Bridging the Digital Divide: Supporting e-democracy. In M. Malkia, A. Anttiroiko and R. Savolainen (eds); eTransformation in Governance – new directions in Government and Politics. Idea Group Publishing, US. pp 255-271. return | |