Since I looked at
the calculations from We Love Local Government on Councillors’ iPads the other day, I’ve had a few conversations with people working in democratic services at various local authorities.
Click pic for credit
It seems that the big worry is less that Councillor’s iPads will cost/save money or have any productivity/accountability gains, than that Councillors will spend council meetings futzing with their new toys instead of paying attention to procedings properly.
A few quick thoughts on this:
- Are we worried that tweeting councillors will be interacting with the public when they should be focussing only upon the views of other elected members? And aren’t the more savvy ones doing this already with their phones?
- Is there an upside to Councillors being able to do quick lookups and on-the-hoof research during council meetings? Will the quality of deliberation go up?
- Are there small-c constitutional issues here? An elected councillor has legitimacy that unelected interlopers don’t have. Should it be that the only evidence that could/should be considered at a council meeting should be tabled by – or through – an elected councillor? Do councillors have a quasi-jurist role (not a new suggestion around here)?
Either way, I’d suggest that a revolution has happened in the last fifteen years – not just in how we communicate but in how we think. I think that the parable of declining spam illustrates this perfectly, and we need to start thinking about the whole question of representation in the light of it.
It’s not that small a question, but one that has profound implications for our governance.
