The Conservatives: £1 million prize for a public policy website

I saw this press release yesterday and it’s had a bit of take-up from the press. Sadly, none of the coverage that I’ve seen has addressed what seems to me to be a serious and interesting – though problematic – proposal.

Jeremy Hunt MP

I’ll be writing something myself over the next few days, but in the meantime, here is the actual press release in full.

The most interesting bit – the ‘notes to editors’ – hasn’t been published online anywhere as far as I know and it’s really worth a look.

I’d be interested to see what you make of it:

Hunt: Solving problems together: Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds

The Conservatives are today announcing a competition, with a £1million prize, for the best new technology platform that helps people come together to solve the problems that matter to them – whether that’s tackling government waste, designing a local planning strategy, finding the best school or avoiding roadworks.

This online platform will then be used by a future Conservative government to throw open the policy making process to the public, and harness the wisdom of the crowd so that the public can collaborate to improve government policy. For example, a Conservative government would publish all government Green Papers on this platform, so that everyone can have their say on government policies, and feed in their ideas to make them better.

This is in addition to our existing radical commitment to introduce a Public Reading Stage for legislation so that the public can comment on draft bills, and highlight drafting errors or potential improvements.

Launching the competition, Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said:

“Conservatives believe that the collective wisdom of the British people is much greater than that of a bunch of politicians or so-called experts. And new technology now allows us to harness that wisdom like never before. So at this time of year, when families and friends are getting together, we’re announcing a new idea to help the British people get together to help solve the problems that matter to them.

“There are currently no technological platforms that enable in-depth online collaboration on the scale required by Government – this prize is a good and cost-effective way of getting one.

“Too often policy has been ill thought through with disastrous consequences. When formulating and implementing policy why should we not listen to the hundreds of thousands of experts out there?”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

In the bureaucratic age, decisions in government, business and other organisations were typically made by a small, closed group of experts. In the post-bureaucratic age, new technologies enable us to reject this top-down approach to decision-making. These new technologies allow us to harness the wisdom of the crowd, take advantage of the power of mass collaboration and make use of the information and ideas dispersed amongst large groups of people. Evidence from around the world has shown that this post-bureaucratic approach can result in more efficient and effective decision-making and problem solving than relying on small groups of experts.

Harnessing the wisdom of the crowd in this way is a fundamentally Conservative approach, based on the insight that using dispersed information, such as that contained within a market, often leads to better outcomes than centralised and closed systems.

The Conservative Party has already used crowd sourcing to develop new policies, for example through our ‘Stand Up Speak Up’ initiative. To make sure that we make best use of this approach, a Conservative government will offer an unprecedented £1 million prize for any individual or team that develops a platform that enables large groups of people to come together online to solve common problems and develop new policies.

Harnessing the wisdom of crowds – case studies

Innocentive
Innocentive is a website used by leading companies such as Proctor and Gamble and charities such as the Rockefeller Foundation, to tap into the wisdom of the crowd and get answers to otherwise intractable research problems. There are over 160,000 scientists and other experts in the Innocentive network, and they are incentivised to take part through cash prizes for solving problems.

Improving the Netflix algorithm
Netflix, a US-based DVD rental company, wanted to improve the algorithm it uses to recommend films to users. Instead of hiring a research team itself, it threw open its dataset, and offered a $1m prize for anyone who could improve its algorithm by 10% or more. This approach yielded a solution far more cheaply and quickly than relying on an internal team of researchers.

Peer-to-patent
Peer-to-Patent uses the wisdom of the crowd to improve the patent process, and has been trialled by the US Patent Office. Under this approach, patent applications are posted online, so that instead of relying on a small group of bureaucrats, anyone in the world can check whether the application is valid. This approach seems to be much faster and more efficient than the traditional closed approach to appraising patent applications.

Solving maths problems
In January 2009, Timothy Gowers, professor of mathematics at Cambridge University and a holder of the Fields Medal, posted a hitherto intractable maths challenge on his blog, and invited readers from across the world to collaborate and solve the problem. The resulting comment thread spanned hundreds of thousands of words and drew in dozens of contributors. Six weeks later, the theorem was proved.

Harnessing the wisdom of crowds in policy making
In the post-bureaucratic age, opening up the policy making process can help us to design better policy and transfer more control to individuals and communities. The Conservative Party is committed to harnessing the wisdom of crowds in a number of ways:

• We will introduce a Public Reading Stage for legislation, so that the public can help to spot errors in legislation, and feed in their comments during the legislative process.
• We will set government data free, enabling the public to collaborate and develop new social and commercial applications.
• We are publishing online, and in real time, the expense claims of our Shadow Cabinet, enabling full and instant scrutiny.
• We have published online a leaked version of the Government’s IT strategy, so that people can post their suggestions on how to develop a better set of policies.

A Conservative government would seek to make extensive use of this approach. However, there are currently no technological platforms that enable in-depth online collaboration on the scale required by government.

We are today announcing that a Conservative government will offer a £1 million prize for any individual or team that develops an online platform that enables large scale collaboration and meets the specifications that we will be publishing alongside the official opening of the competition following the election. This platform will then be used by a future Conservative government to throw open the policy making process to the public, and harness the wisdom of the crowd. For example, a Conservative government will publish all government Green Papers on this innovative and open platform.

The source code of the platform will be made openly available, so that it can be used by local councils, social enterprises and other organisations free of charge.

While leading institutions such as the Gates Foundation, Google and Netflix have successfully made use of procurement prizes, this £1 million prize will be the largest prize ever offered by a British government in the modern era.

(With thanks to Craig Elder for supplying the original)