There are encouraging signs that government is finally opening up to the potential of the internet as a public information exchange.

In Whitehall, the Home Office has begun the process of putting state information online, while the appointment of Sir Tim Berners-Lee to spearhead the opening-up of government data suggests more progress can be expected soon.

But it has been a slow process ­- the Power of Information review was published more than two years ago ­ and has required a titanic effort from the Cabinet Office to drive the programme forward.

There is no such central co-ordination in local government, however. Councils have been left to their own devices both in how they put information online and in how they use social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as tools such as RSS, blogs and open data interfaces.

Statistics compiled by the Local Government Engagement Online Research blog, run by Liz Aryan, show a wide discrepancy in the use of such technologies.

More than half of councils are not using any kind of online tool at all beyond running a web site. Of the half that are, 20 per cent are only using one tool ­ usually Twitter or RSS feeds.

Many authorities are naturally cautious about social media for understandable reasons, according to Chris Head, who is writing a report on councils’ use of social media for user group Socitm, due out in November.

“Every council is autonomous and most take a conservative approach, including blocking access to social media because of fears over threats to reputation and security,” he said.

But Head said councils are going to run into two key problems in future if they continue a head-in-the-sand approach.

Young people coming to work in local government will expect to use these tools as they would email or telephones. And councils could be isolating themselves from online communities and thus be perceived as distant and unengaged by an increasingly digitally-aware public.

Part of the problem is the lack of guidance ­ there are no rules that govern what councils should and should not do, or help them establish the appropriate tone for engagement.

This leaves many being guided by their standard IT rules, which ban such activity on the assumption that citizens would engage through council social media channels in the same casual way they do with friends ­ risking damage to an authority’s reputation.

Where councils have started to engage successfully, it has usually been driven by a few champions in the communications or web teams who have managed to persuade IT departments and politicians that such actions are beneficial.

The fastest development has been in the use of Twitter. About a third of councils (30 per cent) use the micro-blogging service, compared to 15 per cent who use YouTube and 11 per cent on Facebook.

“Twitter allows councils to distribute information in a filtered and direct way, meaning people don’t have to dig through piles of information,” said Head.

While the increasing use of social media is a good thing, there are better tools that councils could be using, according to Adrian Short of Mash the State, a grassroots campaign to encourage authorities to make their data available to the public.
“Lots of councils are getting on the social media bandwagon, but older tools such as RSS are still only used by a quarter of councils,” he said.

Mash the State argues that RSS feeds have great potential because people that councils want to reach can sign up for updates that are relevant to them using the delivery methods they choose: be it text messages, email, Facebook or Twitter.

But Short said the use of all online tools should still be encouraged because they will move councils towards a new view of the internet that he calls “inside out
e-government.”

“They need to stop thinking about their own web sites as the limit of their engagement, forfeiting end-to-end control of the process and providing open data to be used in any interface the public may choose,” he said.

But with only two councils opening their data in such a way so far, the campaign has a long way to go. In the meantime social media will help open councils’ eyes to the possibilities that lie online.