Archive for August 27th, 2008

C-Charge Debate

Published by Iain on August 27, 2008 in Greater Manchester. 0 Comments

Thought I’d try to make a quick test post on my phone – hope it works!

I’m at the Methodist Hall in Manchester for a congestion charge debate. More later when I get back home.

Time To Scrap This Expensive E-Folly

Published by Iain on August 27, 2008 in Salford. 5 Comments

Back in 2005, Salford City Council spent (if I recall correctly) around £30000 of taxpayers’ money on signing up to the Councillor.Info website project. John Cullen, then a Swinton South Labour Councillor, was appointed as the Council’s e-democracy champion to encourage his colleagues to sign up for the project. Unfortunately John didn’t set a terribly good example in terms of making use of the websites, and things have stalled completely since he lost his seat in 2007.

As things stand, only 10 of 60 Salford Councillors have signed up to the scheme, and of those 10 only a handful have updated their sites recently. The entire Salford Councillor.Info site is as good as dormant.

When the scheme was launched I gave it a cautious welcome in principle, although the cost was (and still is) utterly obscene. It clearly hasn’t worked. Councillors have not been keen to sign up and I don’t blame them – the format is very restrictive and you can’t say anything “political”. This makes even a regularly-updated Councillor.Info site very dry and dull.

We should call time on Councillor.Info before we sink even more taxpayers’ money into it. This weblog gets many more visitors than my Councillor.Info profile, and it costs (literally) small change to run compared to the thousands of pounds per annum spent on Councillor.Info.