Tag: Transparency

‘Money for nothing’ not worth the hassle

I received an email from out of the blue the other day containing an offer to ‘sponsor’ a post on my blog, which at first glance seemed appealing; money for nothing, almost.

The email from Sarah, Outreach Manager at Article Writing Services, was vague enough to warrant a reply:

“We have a client who would like to pay you for the opportunity to sponsor a blog post that you have recently written. We know that blogs can be expensive to run and our client would like to support you in that endeavour. In return, our client is asking for one link that they specify placed [sic] into the body copy of the blog post (no porn or gambling). Feel free to contact me with any concerns or clarifications you may have.”

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Busy Christmas break for communities department

Self build - homes of the future?

Ministers at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) today revealed what their teams had been up to during the Christmas break.

Secretary of State Eric Pickles‘ written statement to Parliament outlined his department’s recent undertakings, which included a new initiative to help local communities revitalise disused pubs and social clubs, taking action to make local government more transparent and launching plans to support people to build their own homes.

Meanwhile, Communities Minister Andrew Stunell also set out plans today to bring a proportion of the country’s 300,000 empty homes back into use.

As someone who works in housing, including recently with the ‘self build’ industry, and is looking to possibly build a house, I will be watching these developments with interest.

Freedom of information move opens more public bodies to scrutiny

Today’s announcement that Freedom of Information (FoI) rules will be changed are worth checking out by any public sector communicator – as more of them are to be affected by it.

The move signals the Government’s intention to make it easier for the public to use the Freedom of Information Act to seek details from a wider range of bodies about how public money is spent and decisions taken.

This announcement has formed part of Nick Clegg’s speech on liberty today, which also made proposals to enhance freedom of speech principles by reforming libel laws (an issue which the media has been quick to focus on in its reports).   

Despite the challenges this move poses, I welcome increased transparency and openness across the public sector. It may generate increased work levels for the organisations to be covered by the revised act for the first time; but with openness comes accountability, which is something that I would argue is a good thing. 

It also creates a role for comms teams in supporting organisations who are asked to satisfy FoI requests.

The full press statement covering the Ministry of Justice announcement can be found here.

New Homes Bonus tool a canny calculation

A bonus for the neighbours

The consultation on the Government’s flagship New Homes Bonus is one of a growing number of documents that colleagues are currently familiarising themselves with.

The argument for it is compelling: something is needed to create a powerful, straightforward incentive which rewards local authorities who deliver new housing. This would be done by providing funding, to be ring-fenced for the local community which accepts new housing, over a six-year period. It is an enticement to local communities to welcome development, rather than oppose it.

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Why ‘transparency drive’ is no easy trip

I’ve only just got around to looking at this in detail, but Number 10’s Transparency website has done an amazing job of making the workings of Government accessible to the public.

People can find out about departmental business plans, senior civil servants’ pay, what Ministers are doing and a raft of performance statistics.

If they had wanted, interested parties could have found out most of this information before.

But it would have taken a lot more effort and understanding of how to get around Government to achieve it.

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