Govt Launches Trip Advisor-Style Websites For Health and Education
March 9th, 2009 by Mark Hanson 
Three cheers to Liam Byrne, Cabinet Office Minister, and a guy credited with helping get Number Ten organised. He’s talking up an idea to empower the public and make our grand monolitic public services more accountable to the citizens they serve, using the web. A kind of Trip Advisor model where the public can talk up the good and raise issue with the bad.
The issue of ensuring extra investment into public services isn’t just gobbled up into swathes of bureaucracy and instead produces better and more responsive services is as old as Beveridge. Various approaches have been tried by governments of all colours - swathes of targets, internal competition, constant cost-cutting. But the only way to gain a mandate from the public for more investment is to involve them.
The idea that we can have elections for health directors just wouldn’t take off. The beauty of the web, though, is that people can gather and have a collective voice if they have issue with how their services are organised, rather than feeling like they’re just a number. Interestingly, Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is floating the idea of using the web to boost police engagement with the public on a day-to-day level - almost a virtual Dixon of Dock Green.
An active user base can drive change and innovation in services and more importantly make taxpayers feel as though they’re getting a voice in return for paying in.
I blogged about this exact topic a few months back and generated quite a reaction:)
Tags: , liam byrne, online delivery of public services, Trip advisor style NHS
