[LINK] Government Announces Principles for ICT Enabled Citizen Engagement

[Tom Worthington]

Greetings from the ACS Canberra Branch Conference 
2007 <http://www.acs.org.au/act/2007conference/>. 
In his presentation this morning, Gary Nairn, 
Special Minister of State announced eight 
"Principles for ICT Enabled Citizen Engagement".

The idea is the principles will be used to guide 
agencies services. This doesn't appear to have 
made it to the Miniser's web site yet 
<http://www.smos.gov.au/speeches/>,  so I hunted 
down a draft on the  AGIMO web site 
<http://www.agimo.gov.au/>. Here is a summary 
(more in my blog at 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/03/government-principles-for-ict-enabled.html>):

---
The Australian Government's 2006 e-Government 
Strategy, Responsive Government: A New Service 
Agenda, commits the government to "establish 
Principles for online engagement to support a 
consistent experience for everyone engaging with 
the government electronically."

The Principles have been developed in 
collaboration with the cross-jurisdictional 
public sector community of practice group (the 
e-Democracy Community of Practice). They are 
intended to guide agencies considering engaging 
with citizens using information and communication technology (ICT). ...

The Principles are a best practice guide for 
agencies wishing to engage with citizens using 
Information Communication Technology (ICT) as 
part of their policy making 
processes.  'Citizens', in this context, refers 
to individuals, business, community and other 
organisations and sectors.  These principles are 
the result of research of existing national and 
international principles and with input from 
agency representatives from all levels of 
Australian government.  The principles may need 
to be updated from time to time with the advent 
of emerging technologies, citizen demand and from lessons learnt. ...

What do we mean by engagement?

The OECD1 has developed a three stage maturity 
model for government engagement with citizens using ICT:

Stage 1: Information stage ... Government » Citizen ...
Stage 2: Consultation stage ... Government »« Citizen  ...
Stage 3: Active participation stage ... Government « » Citizen ...

One example of citizen engagement using ICT is 
online engagement.  Online engagement can include 
online forums, Web Logs (BLOGS) on nominated 
discussion topics or e-mail discussion 
groups.  For an existing example of online 
engagement, visit Queensland's Get Involved 
website (www.getinvolved.qld.gov.au) ...

Principles

1. Commitment
2. Community Focus
3. Community Capability and Inclusiveness
4. Mutual Respect, Confidence and Trust
5. Interactivity and Flexibility
6. Responsibility and Accountability
7. Security and Privacy
8. Evaluation and Efficiency



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml