My Society Call for Proposals

[shc]

http://www.mysociety.org/2009/08/06/mys ... sals-2009/

Do you have a ‘mySocietyish’ idea that you’d like to see become reality? Is there something radical about the sites we already run that should change? Do you have any smart ideas about helping more people to benefit from the services we already offer? Or would you just like to read and comment on ideas submitted by other people?

.....

The characteristics of the winning and runner up ideas are highly likely to include one or more of the following factors. Don’t try and include all of them, that’d be silly
They have to involve the Internet. We don’t do clay modelling.
They will capitalise on one or more things that the Internet does really well, better than offline or other forms. WhatDoTheyKnow, for example, seizes on the fact that email can be simultaneously published and rerouted – a simple but critical insight.
They will either be a whole new website idea, or a smart and impactful modification of something we already do.
They will be ideas that have clear social, civic or democratic benefits that are really easy to explain to the least political person you know, even if the technology behind them is fiendishly complicated.
They will have some characteristic that will widely spread the word that the service exists, or that other mySociety services exist.
They will offer brilliant value for money, even if they’re expensive to build in the first instance.
They will be genuinely new ideas
They won’t contain the phrase ’social media’

We might well change these guidelines a bit as the first responses come in. The call will stay open until September 15th, and we’ll hope to announce the winners in early October.

Now it seems to me that a complaints portal might be a very good idea...

with simple dialogues to ensure it goes to the right organisations.. (i.e. LGO, Standards Committee of Local Government, Local Government Complaints panel, Valuation Tribunal, PHSO, Land Registry, Planning Inspectorate, Solicitors Regulation Authority, Audit Commission, District Auditor, Local Elected Representative, Government Complaints panels and Tribunals... etc)...


that collects metrics.. time to response.. etc.. outcome of response.. and where people can archive their complaints.. and explain whatever they may want about the reason for their complaint.. and help others with similar problems.. the LGOWatch infrastructure would be a natural help desk for Ombudsmen complaints.. there is similar infrastructure for a lot of the other complaint types..

... and that is catagorised by both complaint type.. and geographical organisation (i.e. Council)...

at the moment complaints systems are very fragmented... and the 'routemap' can only be identified through experience..

what do others think ?

[Ann]

Here's a list of ideas already submitted

http://www.mysociety.org/category/propo ... ions-2009/

[caebrwyn]

An excellent idea. The ability to publicise both requests and replies to all manner of complaints authorities is invaluable to members of the public and the fact that public bodies are aware of the public nature should encourage more carefully worded (or 'calculated'?... 'honest' would be too much to hope for!) replies.

[ABH]

Interesting but impractical suggestion. My Society may be able to design a portal for complainants to submit a complaint to various bodies but there is no practical way of following the process through to conclusion.

[shc]

Seeing it through to conclusion would be down to the complainant...

The main benefit would be the route map.. ensuring that the complaint was issued to the correct regulator..

Seeing it through to completion would need to remain the responsibility of the complainant.. but there is no reason why they why they should not be directed to user groups of the services.

In the case of council's the WDTK site has been a resounding success.. the Council's are answering the questions instead of ignoring them..

In every case I have ever come across where a Council has been dodgy... the decision is made on the merits.. and is normally cross jurisdictional (there can be a claim to the Court or to the LGO)... and the Council refuses to allow the claim to be examined through its complaints system...

so if you go to Court you are normally arguing that there has been maladministration that the Council has made a decision to excuse.. that led to a flawed decision on the merits.... very difficult to prove..... there are quite a number of JR claims where this is identified..

The mysociety infrastructure (code and services) functionally meet the needs of such a service... that would allow scrutiny of time taken to make a decision.. outcome.. etc... without the actual complaint needing to be made public...

Complaints about a failure of a public body are made public (District Auditor, Planning Inspectorate, CLAE / LGO) Council Tax) etc.. but not the stages and appeals.. Complaints to these are all effectively appeals against a decision (including a delegated decision of a Council)......

[ABH]

Not a case of seeing it through to completion it's a case of others, the public, being able to follow it logically through to completion. The WDTK, TWFY and FMS are dealing with simple single issues not a complex complaint which consists of numerous pieces of evidence, arguments and statements which quite often include personal data. The logistics and problems for My Society would be a nightmare. Again it's a good idea but totally unworkable in practice. Someone has already suggested a front end for CAB so people are put in touch with the right body to complain to but I think that's as far as you can go.

[shc]

The issue is very much about providing a 'front end' (and here restricting to Council's) of logging complaints to them..

FoI wdtk now accounts for about 25 - 35 per cent of FOI's to public sector. The strength of WDTK is that the data is public;

(a) Council Tax / Business rates;
(b) Planning;
(c) Education;
(d) Transport;
(e) Environmental Health;
(f) Local Land Charges;
(g) Social Services;
(h) Parks and gardens / Leisure Centres;
(i) Local members;
(j) Housing

Once you have been through their internal procesess.. you then end up with the Council Complaints system (having normally had no response to the above.. You are then faced with the Council's complaints system (which most ignore).. and then get faced with a range of different tribunals / inquiries etc..

If you don't want your initial complaint making public.. fine.. However.. you do want it publicly logged when you made it.. and if you received a response.. and if you viewed the response as satisfactory..

after which there are varying levels of publicness associated with the different appeal routes..

Most Council's have already purchased CRM software to route complaints.. etc.. they just don't record them.. a portal which catagorized (industry sector) type of complaint and held documents (archive) would be very useful..

Mysociety appears to be looking for responsive public body's.. the only way to secure that is through data.. (and at the moment the only data is controlled by the Council's).. Once you have the data in the public domain.. there is a possibility for change.. ?

[ABH]

The issue is very much about providing a 'front end' (and here restricting to Council's) of logging complaints to them.

But that's not what you stated in your initial post on the subject.

Now it seems to me that a complaints portal might be a very good idea... with simple dialogues to ensure it goes to the right organisations.. (i.e. LGO, Standards Committee of Local Government, Local Government Complaints panel, Valuation Tribunal, PHSO, Land Registry, Planning Inspectorate, Solicitors Regulation Authority, Audit Commission, District Auditor, Local Elected Representative, Government Complaints panels and Tribunals... etc)...that collects metrics.. time to response.. etc.. outcome of response.. and where people can archive their complaints.

[DTO]

I am not sure I understand some of the comments above about council complaints procedures, but I do know my council's is completely useless. You first complain to the department, then the boss and finally the CEO. At each stage they just refer back to the person & department who made the mistake who just deny it. If you are still not satisfied they refer you to the LGO and we all know what happens then.

The complaints officer appears to keep no stats about the process and there are no councillors involved in the process and therefore no scrutiny by the public or their elected representatives.

To me a complaints system should not just resolve complaints properly, but be used to identify council services that need improvement, and it should all be open to scrutiny so the councillors and public can see where the problems are and what the council are doing about them.

Does anyone know of councils where this is done properly or how to get them introduce a best practice complaints system that works in the public’s interest rather than against it?

[shc]

i think it is what had in mind.. as could see the stages in the architecture..

there has been a fair sum of money spent on council complaints system (often part of CRM - customer relationship management)..

DGINFSO were looking at the problems associated with complaints systems a few years back now.. However.. there were no user groups in existence.. and so those taht have been developed are designed to meet organizational needs.. (a lot of ICT systems research is funded by European Commission)....

There is no best practice associated with complaints systems.. the CLAE are responsible for their development... and that is part of the problem.. is very much a chicken and egg situation..

[Crazy C]

When council choose there own complaint systems.

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

My society ideas are great. But if anyone designs a good complaint system for councils, the above law will soon take affect. Is that not just what the LGO is supposed to be. 3 to 4 years of good laws in action, is all it would take for councils to completely legislate against them.

I think the wayto deal with councils is league tables, and yearly fia. I have been trying to put this together myself. i have been trying to decide on ten category's that councils can be listed, compared with each other. wages/increases, complaints/results, capital spends/area income. Then some comparisons to the areas and general position of its residence. I am composing a SUPER YEARLY FIA for all councils, ( am still playing with the code )

1. The my Society site would be good to do Subject assess requests from ( personal i know, but would be helpful to people needing to do them ).
2. I think and complaint logging system for public bodies. ( dealing with complaints would be to complex and high on bandwidth ) but logging the basic details would be good for others, it would fit into there code as is.

Maybe a monthly prize for the best FIA that releases information to the public. ( for things that are not usually available. )

Infarct a few prizes, monthly

1.most indefensible excuse by a public body for not releasing information
2.the Distance cup. ( how far can the public body stretch the truth and still answer )
3.The Hurdles ( how many good things that you have not asked for will they tell you before the bad info you asked for )
4.The best excess fat loss FIA requests. Those evil FOI requests that actually get stuff sorted out. Usually mean trimming the fat ( employment, finance or wages bill )

any further suggestions ?

[shc]

i like very much the idea of naming Council's from the FOIA lists.

The ranking of council's is something the Council's themselves picked up on when New Consumer was ranking big business (top 200 UK companies) in the early 90s (led to best value and then CPA). This was a substantial project funded by Joseph Rowntree (same as mysociety). We are thinking very much on the same lines George... and is a lot more complicated and labour intensive than it looks.. At the same time some of them were seeking to develop 'transparent' procurement..

The Audit Commission now do a lot of this... (ranking without consumers does not work)

What was tried in the 90s was coding and developing applications to comply with Human Rights and the ECHR... the company that now provides most Council's with their complaint system software has its origins in this initiative.... (coding does not work)

The problem is that the moment that consumers start to organize.. you end up with organizations.. and you also lose the reason as to why consumers are seeking to organize (correct a problem).. about 60 per cent of all coms traffic (before the internet) by consumers was with the state.. (i.e. transactions).. there is now much more person to person communication..

if you look at the WDTK site.. the thing that strikes you in relation to local government are the number of people seeking standardised information from Council's (about 50 per cent of the FOI requests are surveys of multiple Council's).. This is a clear indication of failure by Audit Commission and CPA.. The sub-domains are:

(a) Council Tax / Business rates;
(b) Planning;
(c) Education;
(d) Transport;
(e) Environmental Health;
(f) Local Land Charges;
(g) Social Services;
(h) Parks and gardens / Leisure Centres;
(i) Local members;
(j) Housing;
(k) Democratic Infrastructure

The overarching domain is that they are complaints.. and are seeking to identify a failure in service provision.. (non standard service provision).. and/or maladministration and most establish lists.. of performance... and are linked back to user groups..

The LGO determines if there has been service failure and/or maladministration... In most cases the list makers appear to never get past making the list.. and just get cross about the fact that they have identified service failure / maladministration and can do nothing about it..

The issue is how.. can you organise without organising consumers of state services to effect change to a monopoly..

On the west.. you have corporate america (capitalism rules)... on the east you had communism.. in the middle you have socialism.. (Europe).. without a dynamic private sector (not just SME's).. the state picks up the pieces.. but how do you control a monopoly.. when there are no market forces ????