Describe your idea:

Enables people to broswe, view and start live webcasts with one another in real time – anytime 24/7.

It will also enable people to stream, view and take part in online meetings, debates and discussions. This could be between two people, a community meeting in Italy or what is being said in the European Parliament now.

I can choose to view what is happening now in real time or keep up with the progress of a small community in Naples via their streaming town hall meetings.

What problem does it solve?:

Enables me to fully take part in the decision making process across Europe – whether be it by watching, debating, discussing or starting my own webcast.

It will enable people to be fully informed of progress and developments across Europe from viewing what goes on inside The European Parliament to the minutes of a town hall meeting in rural Athens.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

Enables people across Europe to communicate with one another regardless of language barrier.

I will be able to read, write, converse, view and share media with others. It will be able to translate between all languages in Europe so that communication barrier is no issue.

I will be able to discuss issues, news, government, media etc with people in Greece, Germany, France, Ukraine etc to see their point of view.

It will be pan-european and will strengthen the unity of europe’s populous to communicate and integrate with one another.

What problem does it solve?:

The language barrier – I speak and understand English but cannot communicate in other languages such as french, german, turkish, greek etc. It will do all the translating for me so that communication becomes fluid.

I want to be able to connect with the people of Europe to share, discuss and view ideas, media and hot topics affecting me and them.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

A website giving a list of government consultation documents, the starting and closing dates for the consultations, a link to the relevant government webpage and a place where you can optionally record your consultation response (if you wish to make your response public).

Government departments produce various consultation documents to get feedback on proposed policies. Recent examples include:

“Keeping the right people on the DNA database” – consultation on how long we should retain fingerprints and DNA.
“Consultation on Legislation to Address Illicit P2P File-Sharing” – setting out the Government’s legislative approach for addressing the problem of illicit use of P2P file-sharing technology.

What problem does it solve?:

Consultation documents are produced by a variety of government departments. But there seems to be no central registry of these consultations, so it’s difficult to find out if there is a consultation on a subject that is important to you.

What’s more the government does not publish the either content of consultation responses or the number of responses on a given topic. This means it is difficult to know if the government is ignoring responses that are contrary to policy, and it is difficult to know if a particular consultation generated a large number of responses either in favour or against the response.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

Improve TWFY by commissioning usability research to analyse the site, monitor a variety of users, & make recommendations.

My own suggestions would be about improving Search. E.g. a search for ‘Cambridge’ should: 1. offer info about the MP for Cambridge; 2. group debates by bill; 3. separate different types of result, e.g. bills, written answers, other debates (explained in links or popups); 4. use shorter extracts & smaller text, so one can more easily scan down a list of results (I can only fit 2 on screen at a time. Compare with Google’s output); 5. change the often very unhelpful extracts for ‘Written answers’. It would be far better to always use the *question* as the extract, even though it does not contain the search term.

What problem does it solve?:

TheyWorkForYou is an essential tool for holding Parliament to account. Researchers and workers in Parliament have come to rely on it. However, as a tool for ordinary citizens, its value is limited by the fact that its usability is not very good. This is for a variety of reasons, some easily remediable, but some (I guess) will require quite a lot of work on extra metadata. I have mentioned particular problems but also suggested commissioning a usability report because if significant resources are going to be put into improving the site, it would help to target them well.

Type of idea: New feature for an existing project

Describe your idea:

The site is linked in with sites of local Citizens’ Advice Bureaux (CABs) (who hopefully help to fund it). It provides their online services – what this consists of would depend on resources and would hopefully increase as time goes on, but examples are information on a variety of subjects, automatic submission of some forms such as benefit or housing application forms, appointment booking for personal visits to local CABs, contact details for other agencies and information sources, etc.

What problem does it solve?:

Local Citizens’ Advice Bureaux provide an invaluable service giving free advice to people often in desperate circumstances – advice on debt management, benefits, housing, discrimination, court proceedings, etc. The umbrella body Citizens’ Advice collates information from the caseload and uses it to inform its well-respected policy proposals and lobbying to government. Unfortunately CABs seldom have the resources to meet the need for their services. Most or all provide online advice services to help reach more people, but unfortunately, funding arrangements mean they all do this independently, and the quality of the online services is very variable. AdviceForAll would help to improve and standardise the service they offer.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

A new site which allows you to make complaints against the police. It guides you through the relevant questions and then submits the complaint to the IPCC – who in the first instance will normally forward it to the relevant police authority. It also publishes your complaint, and creates an ad-hoc e-mail address for responses and requests for further details to the user, which are also published, in the same way as WhatDoTheyKnow.com. Published complaints can be browsed or searched by authority and by type of complaint.

What problem does it solve?:

The IPCC does have a complaints form online (http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/index/complainants/forms/form_complaint.htm) but it has some usability problems. The main problem with it, however, is that complaints made are not public. If you have been beaten up by a police officer you can register a complaint but you do not know if large numbers of complaints have been made against the same force or even officer. You may suspect the treatment you received was tacitly their usual operating procedure, but no-one can be sure until a pattern of similar complaints emerges. As a result the police are far less accountable for their actions. This site would help to hold them to account.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

An lot of “science” news stories in the mainstream media are bunk. Sometimes they are completely made up. This problem is particularly bad in the fields of medicine and nutrition. I refer you to Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science” for numerous examples.

I propose a community site which provides:

1. A way to collaboratively annotate these stores, e.g. with original data and references.

2. A way to check stories easily. For example, a browser button that finds the annotations of a story.

3. A way to publicly correspond with the editor, ombudsperson, and if necessary file a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission if the story is discovered to be false.

What problem does it solve?:

1. It allows people reading “news” purporting to be science to check the facts.

2. With sufficient feedback to the media, it could improve the quality of science reporting.

3. It would undermine media charlatans posing as scientists and “nutritionists” and spreading lies in order to sell their branded snake-oil.

4. It would improve the public understanding and trust in science and rational thought. The long term benefits of this should be obvious to anyone.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

What about a Court of Public Opinion on the web?

What problem does it solve?:

Official ‘enquiries’ chaired by ‘independent’ chairpersons are not always judged by the Public to be totally impartial and it would clearly be of great help to the government to know what the court of Public opinion thought, for example, about the ‘Iraq war’ or whether ‘economics’ is a subject that can be taken seriously? It is possible that, properly orchestrated, rational and true facts could be put in the public arena and some sort of truly independent panel could give judgment?

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

A website containing publicly-available information of the directorships, significant shareholdings and interests of the UK’s (perhaps the world’s) richest private citizens.

This would double as a register of companies and the individuals with a stake in them.

Put simply, this site would do for Companies House what TheyWorkForYou.com has done for Hansard.

What problem does it solve?:

The private sector has as great an influence over society as the public sector. In turn, the private sector is influenced greatly by a relatively small number of individuals and organisations.

There is much publicly available information on these individuals and organisations, but it is contained in disparate and often user-unfriendly sources. I believe the TheyWorkForUs.com platform could be repurposed to make this information more accessible and easier to understand.

Just as TheyWorkForUs.com has served as an informal focal point for citizen engagement in political machinations, WeWorkForThem.com could do the same for the private sector.

Also, a little public scrutiny never did anyone’s honesty and responsibility any harm.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

A huge problem with local councils, housing authority (or ALMO) is accountability of spending. For example, housing bodies are often accused of spending far in excess of market rates for the same work in the private sector. Particularly relating to housing authority repairs (”major works”) in communal buildings. I’m hoping all the data is already publicly available under existing legislation (I believe it is).

What problem does it solve?:

It is very difficult to access this information currently. This is important for tennants and leasholders to assess the costs of works.

There is a persistent accusation against housing authorities for over spending, or gaining uncompetitive quotes for works. This service would provide a platform to change that.

Type of idea: A brand new project