National Audit Office: Open data the key to 'big society' Parliament's finance watchdog has said that stronger information strategies and more transparent government data will be key to the 'big society' agenda. The delivery of public services by charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises will require a "step change" from earlier attempts to open up government, such as the …
The way to get more people volunteering and working in, and for, 'the community' (tm) is to reduce the red tape and bureaucracy involved in doing so.
I read in the ES last night about a woman who wanted to 'do something'. While she is obviously insane, this is a laudable ambition.
She decided that visiting the elderly was within her means and started to find out how to 'do it.
However it took her three months to gather the required 'permission'. That included the charity involved picking up references from the electoral register and her work, and her having a CRB check. Then the spending cuts meant that the charity involved lost part of its funding and this particular program was being terminated.
How sad she was, she couldn't visit the elderly any more.
Bugger.
Now all of this raises a few questions.
1) Why did it take so long to get her in touch with someone who could use a visitor? If this process had been quicker perhaps she would, even now & without the assistance of the charity, still be visiting someone.
2) Why didn't she look up and down her own street. I bet she'd find a couple of elderly people within two minutes walk. They might dribble a bit and smell of wee, but that's a hazard with any of us over 30. She could start to speak to them in the street. Perhaps help them carry shopping back from the local shop etc. You know, stuff that we used to do in the olden days. Perhaps she could have made a couple of FRIENDS!!!
No need for CRB checks. If she's bad then hammer her hard. If she's not then why bother with her in the first place. After all we don't start checking the youth of today to see if they're going to be thieves and burglars do we? Oh wait, some ones already proposed that we should do that.
As long as the really, really significant information on how OUR money is spent remains hidden behind commercial confidence undertakings, the community & voluntary sectors (and SMBs for that matter) will remain on the back foot. And we'll never know if we're being taken for a ride.
When public money is being spent, every bit about it should be freely available. It should be a standard condition of public sector contracts that the financials and the Ts & Cs are published, and any company that doesn't like it can look elsewhere for their business.
I also look forward to Hell freezing over.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
