So what’s happened over the last month?

Community council location finder project

The final community council location finder code has been submitted to the client. There were a few days delay waiting for up-to-date data to arrive at the client.

I look forward to the site going live. Meanwhile, here are screenshots of the final version:

• Initial load
• Instructions
• Hiding CCs, so that users can click-to-zoom on any LA
• Searching for a specific postcode
• Result of click-to-zoom on an LA (CC markers and groups displayed)
• CC marker pop-up

Current project

I’m doing the literature review for the resurvey of Community Council online presences. This will update the summer 2012 report. To create connections with European research, it’s likely that I will examine how open-ness and transparency are supported by these presences.

Presentations

Peter Cruickshank and I have

• presented the community council location finder project at a Community Council Liaison Officers networking event
• submitted evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Inquiry into the Flexibility and Autonomy of Local Government

I took part in the commission’s panel discussion around digital democracy. Here is the original submission. (Thanks as ever to Peter for making my prose legible.) Here is video of the discussion.

Yesterday, I was a note-taker at From Centre to Community – reclaiming local democracy in Scotland. My personal aim was to learn from others at this event, and this was more than fulfilled. I also met ‘Paddy’ Bort, co-author of The Silent Crisis, and Adam Stewart, secretary to the commission, among many others. Most people I spoke to were very well informed and had a lot to contribute. Others came simply to learn.

Many good points were raised – not just pie-in-the-sky schemes. I’m not optimistic that local democracy will be perfected in my lifetime. In fact, I am certain that nothing in this world can ever be perfect. But I am very optimistic that we can start to improve matters, right here, right now.