The report calls for a voluntary regulation regime, with strong incentives for joining, such as easier press accreditation or possibly labelling schemes. A new code of conduct would be at the heart of the regulatory regime.

Jenkins also calls on civil society organisations to fund innovative practice in news and information, particularly focusing on technological and editorial innovation to broaden reach and access.

Finally, the report recommends a stronger push on high-speed broadband, more emphasis on ethics in journalism training, and ongoing support for public broadcasting.

Declaration: Carnegie are helping out with our thinking on media regulation, but this is their project rather than ours.

François Hollande, the Socialist candidate for president of France, is well ahead in the polls, so it’s worth reading his pre-manifesto, “The change is now: 60 commitments for France”, published last week.

François Hollande. Image via Wikipedia

It’s striking, as others have pointed out, that the Internet and new technologies get sparse mention in the 23 pages of political commitments. Other than a few business-focused promises about high-speed Internet and tech businesses, there’s nothing that touches on public service reform, let alone the sort of internet-enabled participation and co-design that was being discussed at UKGovCamp last week.

The closest M. Hollande gets is commitments to decentralisation (pledge 54, p. 35), but that is at its heart a specific proposal to undo one of the local government reforms undertaken by Sarkozy.

Compare that with the proposals in the UK Conservative manifesto from 2010, whose summary promises:

“We will give people much more say over the things that affect their daily lives. We will make government, politics and public services much more open and transparent. And we will give the
people who work in our public services much greater esponsibility. But in return, they will have to answer to the people. All these measures will help restore trust in our broken political system.”

Similarly, the Labour party’s manifesto at the same election said:

“Citizens expect their public services to be transparent,
interactive and easily accessible. We will open up government,
embedding access to information and data into the very fabric of public services. Citizens should be able to compare local services, demand improvements, choose between providers, and hold government to account.”

We await the full PS manifesto, and that from incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. Perhaps the absence of public service reform ideas reflects a socialist conservatism around public service delivery.

I suspect, however, that the lack of commitments on new models of public service reflects its lack of currency in the French political system. On Twitter, during UKGovCamp, Nicolas Vanbremeersch (@versac) said that there had never been a French GovCamp – but perhaps there should be.

It feels like, at a time when the French government is under the same pressure to make savings as the British one, that this is something where Britain could take a lead, if the appetite for change is there among the leaders and we can find the disruptors.

So, thanks Strange Maps blog, who have posted about it with the original place-name graph – obtained by stopping every two hundred metres along the A10 and asking ten people “where am I?”

Was this the face that launched a thousand blogs? Getty Images via @daylife

My back-of-a-cornflake-packet physics knowledge tells me that matter has a counterpart, called antimatter, and if the two meet, they are annihilated in a burst of energy. It turns out that the Euro and Stephen Hester‘s bonus package have the same relation, except that when they meet, consistency is annihilated in a burst of comment pieces.

Thus those who, on European issues, utter full-throated calls for the People’s Voice To Be Heard are, on Hester’s bonus, pursing their lips, wringing their hands and imploring us to look at the long-term economic consequences of giving in to populism.

Meanwhile, the compromise-hugging internationalist pro-Europeans are transformed into Tribunes of the Plebs, praising the people from the rostrum for their sturdy common sense.

Almost as if they weren’t interested in what the people thought at all, except when it suited them.

I seem to keep encountering folks who respond to new bits of news unfavorable to their guy by reflexively adjusting all of their other views to preserve their pre-conceived notion that their guy is The Man.

via Are Primary Fights Becoming Dueling Cults of Personality? By Jim Geraghty. (National Review)

Leveson is considering a range of matters, from criminal abuses to the disputed terrain of privacy. But press criminality should properly be the concern of a hitherto lax police force. The excessive dominance of certain media players could be tackled by considering market share, the province of an existing regulator, the Competition Commission. Recent witnesses have warned against new statutory restrictions. So unless Leveson recommends a new privacy law, which none of the pre-Christmas panel advocated, what would be left for a new regulator to regulate?

Plenty, in my view.

Katie Price gets doorstepped by photographers. Difficult to get excited by this if no law is broken: her wealth and fame depend on a cultivated symbiosis with the media. But if the same treatment is meted out to a “private” individual, it looks different. And imagine that individual was the subject of stories hinting, on mere supposition, they were complicit in a crime.

A political party sees the worst constructions put upon its motives by a hostile newspaper. Provided the coverage isn’t libellous, tough. Same for big businesses, corporations, football teams. They are big and ugly enough to take it. But the same treatment to a local charity or a corner shop?

No one was specifically libelled by The Sun’s Hillsborough coverage on 19th April 1989. But an entire community felt besmirched. But how would redress be pursued? A legal action: City of Liverpool versus News International?

In many areas of life, public service, for example, there are bodies which people individually or collectively can approach and seek redress outside the courts. Complainants may lack resources to pursue legal action. They may not actually want damages, but simply an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and an apology, or they may have been treated unfairly but within the letter of the law. One can easily imagine something like this for complaints against the print media: a body hearing claims from members of the public that they had been unfairly pursued or traduced by a newspaper.

Would it be a regulator? Many myths abound about regulators. Time for a few truths.

Regulation suggests standards, rules and procedures, inspection, licensing or permits. Regulation suggests all these things. But regulators rarely do them all. Some regulators issue licences. Many have competence to inspect categories of business, but do not licence or control market entry. Economic regulators may not inspect individual businesses at all, but uphold market standards – competition, fair pricing – to protect consumers. Some regulators develop laws. Others police laws set elsewhere. Whenever a regulator is established, it is almost always an innovation of range, scope and competence. It is possible to create proportionate, risk-based and non-invasive regulators that leave most businesses alone and focus relentlessly on wrongdoers. And it is possible to create overbearing, intrusive, meddlesome regulators that fail to spot wrongdoings because they cannot see the wood for the trees.

Further, it is simplistic to equate regulation with state control. Plenty of regulators are statutory and funded from general taxation. But independence from ministerial control is often a defining characteristic.

One group of independent, publicly funded, quasi-regulatory bodies are the various Ombudsmen. They do not inspect, but respond to complaints. Funded by government, they are not subject to political control. Indeed, the Local Government Ombudsman regularly finds against politicians and administrations of all political shades.

A publicly funded Press Ombudsman could develop and promulgate standards and then receive complaints.

This sounds a bit like the Press Complaints Commission. However, it would not suffer that body’s “producer capture”, which Leveson clearly sees as a major problem. Neither would it be the repressive thought police of news editor imagining. Established by statute, it could be subject to guaranteed long-term funding and non-departmental (ie not overseen by a minister). Senior officials could be Crown appointments, but not selected by the Prime Minister, chosen instead by an independent recruitment panel drawn from a range of stakeholders, including the public. And the Ombudsman could avoid becoming a rich celebrity’s privacy shield by concerning itself with the comparative “vulnerability” of claimants.

Leveson sniped at the PCC in recent exchanges, describing it as a mere complaints handler. Our putative Ombudsman would have to be more than that to satisfy him. It would need real teeth.

The Local Government Ombudsman specialises in restorative justice. This approach might have force with print media. Being required to print full front page apologies could cause editors to interest themselves in the factuality of their coverage. But so would the occasional imposition of very steep fines.

A Press Ombudsman would be mostly silent. It wouldn’t inspect. It wouldn’t licence. It wouldn’t meddle. Its scope would be narrow. But it would be credible, independent and carry a medium-sized stick.

This option, which we discussed at the December session, seems to me a proportionate and constructive step. It fills a perceived gap in the scheme of redress, but does not risk state control or censorship. It builds on existing arrangements, but gives them backbone.

A softly spoken but respected sheriff in the Wild West of news.

Your guide to the 2011 Washington Election – The Living Voters Guide.

I particularly liked the Wrangl-like “Yes/no” arguments section, the prominent links to background information (such as the fiscal impact and the full text), and the ability to enter a zip code to see whether there were any local initiatives on the ballot as well. Very nicely done.

1. GDS is getting big and getting mainstream. It feels like for the past couple of years we’ve been playing with a cute little puppy called “Gov.uk”, and all of a sudden we’ve noticed it’s got big. It’s still great, but now we’re hastily moving vases out of the way of its swishing tail, and hoping it won’t jump up and lick frail Auntie Joan’s face.

2. There’s more and wider appetite for engagement on open data than I thought there would be – Tim Davies ran a great session thinking about a charter.

3. It occasionally felt that we were shifting from edgy rebels to comfortable clique – maybe that’s a reflection of the fact that so many of us were repeat attenders.

4. We’re closer to getting it right on the infrastructure for democracy than we used to be, but there’s still a long way to go. (More on this later)

5. PCCs are the stealth reform – no-one seems to understand how close they are, and how much potential effect they’ll have. (More on this later, too)

6. I didn’t like the Mike Bracken keynote. Positionally, it felt like “a few words from the Minister”, for all Mike delivered it well and seemed like a nice guy.

7. Paul Clarke’s GP has a rubbish appointment-booking system.

8. I’m still not sure what success looks like for the attempt to get agile methods to replace waterfall in policy development. When will we know we can declare victory?

9. There are more of us, and that might be leading to more specialisation. The hack day didn’t build much – which was fine, there were some great discussions – and maybe there just weren’t as many coders as you’d need to do that.

10. I still think all conferences should be run this way, even though I now occasionally get paid for speaking at the old-fashioned sort.

11. We’ve still not quite worked out how to keep the conversation going between events.

12. I suspect that one of the more forward-thinking local government chief executives would really enjoy the event – and bring expertise into some of the conversations – a handful of targeted invitations next year perhaps?

13. Mark O’Neill and I share a love of Brussels (the city rather than the Daily Mail bogeyman or the vegetable).

14. Bin reminders are surprisingly popular. Don’t see the need for them myself.

15. We’ve still not understood how individual and community work together (from a service design perspective).

16. Nothing like this has ever happened in France, but @versac (whose colleague Claire was there) thought it would be a good idea if it did.

17. Birmingham has a nest of brilliant civic-minded activists, Nick Booth, Simon Whitehouse, Michael Grimes, and many others, who should be loved and cherished by the council much more than they seem to be.

18. Don’t pitch too much & leave yourself no time to participate.

19. You can prepare a presentation with pretty pictures in the time it takes to introduce 230 people to each other.

20. Only one councillor there. A great shame – if we are going to get localism and community action right we need to put the future councillor role at the centre of it (much more on this at some future date).

Thanks again, Dave and Steph, for a great weekend. Thanks too to the people who came along to my sessions and made them such interesting and challenging discussions.

Finally, for people who want that GovCamp buzz and can’t wait till next January, exactly what you’re looking for is right here on the South Coast at CityCamp Brighton, 2-4 March. More details here.

We’re sure that this year’s, on 2-4 March, will be even better. We have a bigger prize fund thanks to our generous sponsors, and will be giving out more small grants so the CityCamp goodness gets right out into the city.

Based on feedback from last year, we’re hosting a special lead-up event for community and voluntary groups, to explain what CityCamp is, how it works and how they can get the best out of it for their organisations. That event is on 9 February in central Brighton and free tickets are already available. Tickets for the main event will be available from 10 February – but those at the induction event will get first chance at them.

Finally, we’re looking for help – both practical and financial – to make the event as great as it can be. If you want to help with getting the word out or practical arrangements on the day, or if you or your company want to sponsor a session to connect with our city’s interested and engaged innovators, get in touch.

Image via Wikipedia

Via Involve, I’ve come across two case studies of citizens’ juries being used in the NHS – one in Oldham which looked at fairness in commissioning, and one in Buckinghamshire which looked at setting the priorities for dementia care.

Both are reasonable examples of what citizens’ juries can achieve, but they raise a couple of questions.

First: Bucks say “Planning and running a citizens’ jury is resource intensive, requiring significant financial investment,” but unhelpfully don’t say how much they actually spent. They say they are looking for cheaper ways of doing the same thing – it would be interesting to know whether they found the high costs in the design and recruitment, or the event itself.

Second: Neither makes any mention of how they involved non-jurymembers in the process, by liveblogging, webcasting or tweeting about what happened. That feels like a missed opportunity – and suggests that the citizens’ jury was designed more for the benefit of the NHS institution than to improve civic debate and understanding.