Introduction

On 9 July 2008 the government published the Community Empowerment White Paper - Communities in control: real people, real power. Chapter 3 of the White Paper set out the case for improving citizens' access to, and use of, information on local services and performance, to empower them to hold local service providers to account. CLG is taking this forward through its 'Timely Information for Citizens Project'. The aim of the project is to:

• Establish a body of good practice for the effective provision by local authorities of timely information on local services and performance to their citizens.
• Evaluate innovative new approaches to informing citizens through piloting with local authorities
• Through the IDeA, RIEPs and other support organisations, develop a programme of activities to support the spread of good practice among local authorities.

Research into good practice

CLG has commissioned two pieces of research to help establish a body of good practice techniques:

1. A literature review to identify and extract good practice lessons from both published and unpublished research, case studies and evaluations of both UK and international examples. The evaluation will look at which approaches to selecting, presenting and disseminating information have the greatest impact on citizens' actual and perceived empowerment.
2. A series of workshops with local authorities and other stakeholders to evaluate current local authority information provision, especially where they are using new and innovative approaches. The aim is to establish and report on their experiences of how effective their practices are at meeting citizens' needs

Local Authority Pilots

Following on from the research, we will be working with local authorities to augment the body of good practice through piloting a range of innovative approaches to sharing information with citizens, community groups and with third parties.

The aim of pilots is to establish which new and untested approaches to informing citizens are effective and efficient at doing so and are worthy of wider consideration by local authorities. Successful pilots will act as exemplars, and their evaluation results will feed into the good practice guidance and toolkits for use by local authorities.

Suitable pilot projects will be identified from the research results, or through suggestions from key stakeholders (such as LGA, IDeA, RIEPs, GOs or policy teams within CLG). The pilots could investigate issues such as:

• How best to tackle information provision in two-tier areas
• Looking at different aspects of information provision; such as use of new media and channels of information, innovative ways of engaging citizens and provision of new/innovative types of information.
• testing the practicalities of providing information as well as the benefits
• exploration of citizen perception of information they receive (possibly in a later phase of the work)

Activities to support the spread of good practice

We will be working closely with the IDeA and the RIEPs to develop plans to promote the spreading and sharing of good practice. This is likely to involve:

• Sector-produced light-touch guidance and good practice case studies on effective communication of local data
• Development of a community of practice website for the exchange if ideas, information and peer support. Where possible this will make full use of existing tools such as the IDeA's esd-toolkit.
• Round table discussion of county observatories, LARIA and other interested parties to develop innovative ideas
• working through Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnerships to build capacity in authorities
• establishing appropriate processes and procedures for collating and reporting information - this will be an important aspect of bringing together information from different departments within Local Authorities.

More information about this project can be obtained from:

Antonio Irranca (Project Manager)
Tel: 020 7944 6442
E-mail: Antonio.irranca@communities.gsi.gov.uk

Or

Geoff Salvatore (Project co-ordinator)
Tel: 020 7944 4144
E-mail: geoff.salvatore@communities.gsi.gov.uk