Lib Dem frontbencher gets e-democracy award

Wednesday, 9 February 2005 12:00 AM

Liberal Democrat frontbencher Steve Webb has won the inaugural Hansard Society Award for the most innovative use of technology to encourage participation in politics.

Mr Webb, MP for Northavon, has been running a series of online and text messaging surveys on his constituency website.

He won out over fellow nominees Labour's Anne Campbell - who was the first MP to set up a website - and the Conservatives' Tim Collins who runs an "e-village hall" answering posted queries from his constituents.

Mr Webb came top for pioneering the use of both e-forums and text debates and seeking the views of his constituents at both local and national levels.

Mr Webb told politics.co.uk that he was pleased by the award - particularly as most of the day-to-day work of replying to emails was so "unglamorous"

He said that the response to the email forum had been "massively positive" from his constituents and stressed that the forums welcomed everyone from the constituency - not just Lib Dems.

Though Mr Webb set out to market text and emails equally, he found that the best response has come from the "slightly older" demographic who use email both at home and at work. The trouble with text messages, he added, is that those who use them most are the hardest to inform about the scheme as they tend not to read the local or political press.

"Email and text users tend to be the younger demographic, and most of those whose vote tend to be older", Mr Webb said, noting that it was for politicians to try and reach out to the younger group.

The next step for the award winner is to sign up more constituency members to his forums beyond the 3,000 odd already registered.

Though most of the Hansard Society awards are voted for either by MPs, peers or the public, these MPs were singled out by the e-democracy unit at the Hansard Society.

Virginia Gibbons, communications manager at the Hansard Society, told politics.co.uk that the key for all three MPs' nominations was the degree of interactivity shown on their sites.

The charity has been running a series of cutting-edge e-democracy programmes designed to engage young people and non-traditional groups in politics. These include the creation of a specific website for children and online surgeries with MPs.

It decided to create the new innovation in technology award - which it hopes now to run on a yearly basis - after the team noted that none of the major political awards ceremonies recognised endeavour in this area.

She urged more MPs to explore the benefits of technology and particularly pilot new ways of connecting with voters. Ms Gibbons said that though MPs' websites have improved "immeasurably" over the past years, the internet is still dramatically underused. Web-blogs might be an area the society looks at in the future, she added.

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