When I read about Andrew Leigh’s departure from academia into the pointy end of the social policy world on secondment to Treasury for six months, my first thought was that it was a mixed blessing - no doubt Andrew will do good things in the public service, but taking him out of the mix of commentary in the blogosphere and the pages of the Fin deprives us of one of the far too few provocative and interesting and informed writers on public affairs we have in this country. My second thought, having attended Richard Allan’s presentation at the CCi conference last week was that it didn’t need to be this way. Tim Watts got there before me - pointing to the much more enlightened view taken on public servants contributing to public debate in the Old Blighty. Once the home of the “Official Secrets Act” and all things backstage and hidden, Westminster is doing an awful lot better in promoting open government and facilitating public debate than we are in this country. And British citizens are doing a lot better at finding ways to talk back to power via the web. Worth thinking about why that might be so.
You can read about what Allan discussed in terms of the dynamic relationship between citizens, pollies, public servants and information in the contemporary UK in this informative report of the session in question from my QUT colleague Axel Bruns.
Well, FWIW Mark I believe Andrew’s work will be of far greater service if he’s involved in the Treasury department directly.
I don’t think Andrew’s work in commentary and public debate has been as constructive as it warrants - because reporters have tended to feed his results into their own obsessions and narratives instead of just straight-batting it.
I’ve butted heads a couple of times over his educational findings, but I have no doubt he will do some useful and constructive policy work within Treasury, without having it fed through the meeja sausage-factory.
Onya, Andrew!
If I recall correctly, there was an inquiry into E-government - that is, government departmental blogs and the like. Apparently there weren’t a lot of submissions (I put in one, after Dave Bath pointed it out to me).