To mark Parliament Week – a programme of activities connecting people across the UK with the Westminster Parliament – the Hansard Society hosted a half-day event to look at the problems with the legislative process, and how technology might help solve them.
The latest in our Future Parliament series of research and events, it also looked at how Westminster could best use the rupture of being uprooted from the Palace to drive innovation, including trialing new technology.
Off to first @YourUKParl Parliament Week event with @HansardSociety#FutureParliament#UKPW16https://t.co/vn8jCwiWj5
— Aileen Walker (@AileenWalkerUK) November 14, 2016
Capacity, Scrutiny and Engagement: Challenges and Opportunities
Our first panel looked at the current challenges to the legislative process within Parliament, and those areas where technology might be of greatest use, drawing on the Society’s involvement in the mutli-national EU funded Sense4us technology research project.
Dr Ruth Fox, Director of the Hansard Society, chaired a discussion with Emma Allen, Director of Digital Development, Parliament Digital Service; Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow; and Liam Laurence Smyth, Clerk of Legislation in the House of Commons.
Changing culture
All the panelists raised culture change as a major issue for Parliament and technology - whether encouraging people to get involved with legislation, or moving beyond mass-email point-and-click campaigns.
Culture change required; tech can help but if fundamental message is confused, ppl will just be frustrated - @stellacreasy#FutureParliament
— Beki Hill (@BekiHill) November 14, 2016
Getting people involved in legislation is the biggest challenge says Liam Lawrence, Parliament’s clerk of legislation. #FutureParliament
— Kathryn Corrick (@kcorrick) November 14, 2016
Clearly a need for civil society to think more about how tech can create change without deluging MPs with identical emails #FutureParliament
— Victoria Boelman (@vboelman) November 14, 2016
Education
Education was also a clear factor for both the panelists and audience, helping the public understand both what Parliament does and decoding the language it uses.
There's a need for trusted sources that explain the realities of parliament, not just the logistics, says @stellacreasy#FutureParliament
— Beki Hill (@BekiHill) November 14, 2016
Over third of Qs posed to Parliament's enquiries office don't relate to Parliament, says @_allenemma#FutureParliament
— Hansard Society (@HansardSociety) November 14, 2016
Opportunities for improvement
With the challenges laid out, it was clear that technology could help improve the process.
PDS is expanding a online glossary of parliamentary terms to help public grasp procedural language, says @_allenemma#FutureParliament
— Hansard Society (@HansardSociety) November 14, 2016
Q I asked at #FutureParliament was whether #AI & language recognition could help interpret legislative jargon & bills for wider population
— DisruptivePolitics (@DisruptivePoltx) November 14, 2016
There must be a technological solution to analyse correspondence, verify constituents & determine themes!@stellacreasy#FutureParliament
— Hansard Society (@HansardSociety) November 14, 2016
Sense4us
With a break for refreshments, the audience was able to learn more about Sense4us, a multi-national technology research project funded by the European Commission to develop new information discovery tools for policy-makers and researchers. The Sense4us toolset includes new tools to support text analysis, social media search and sentiment, linked open data search, and dynamic policy model simulations.
Demonstrating the SENSE4US intelligent decision and policy making support toolbox #FutureParliament@kmiou#Sense4Uspic.twitter.com/Xad1vkcVQW
— Hassan Saif (@hrsaif) November 14, 2016
Parliament as an innovation lab: Restoration and Renewal… and beyond
Our second panel looked more closely at the future of Parliament - and the potential opportunities for innovation across the Restoration and Renewal programme.
With MPs and Peers due to move out of the Palace into alternative locations in the Westminster area for a few years, could these temporary new Houses be turned into parliamentary laboratories to trial and test new digital technology?
BBC journalist and technology critic Bill Thompson chaired the discussion with Victoria Boelman, Principal Researcher in Government Innovation, Nesta; Elizabeth Linder, Founder of the Conversational Century; Rebecca Rumbul, Head of Research, mySociety; and Paul Walland, Director of Innovation at the IT Innovation Centre, University of Southampton, and co-ordinator of the Sense4us project.
Experimental design?
Regardless of what technologies Parliament might test, the panel was clear that any temporary building presents a chance to be bold and less risk-averse, especially when it comes to space and design.
London's example of using structures created decades/centuries ago, because they were built with great vision, has lessons #FutureParliament
— Glyn R Jones (@GlynRJones) November 14, 2016
Tech world tends to abstract space and technology. They need to be spoken abt together, says @elinder#FutureParliament
— Hansard Society (@HansardSociety) November 14, 2016
.@vboelman - Decant of Parliament should allow for failure when trialling ways of working, shouldn't be risk adverse. #FutureParliament
— Adam Dyster (@AdamDyster) November 14, 2016
No silver bullet
Closing the event, it was clear that any technological ‘solutions’ would need to be considered carefully. From online echo chambers to the digital divide, innovation is just one tool at Parliament’s disposal.
Algorithms create echo chambers. Especially problematic when applied to democracy. How do we solve this? From the floor#FutureParliament
— Hansard Society (@HansardSociety) November 14, 2016
Especially given recent elections and polls, we need better mechanisms on how we understand people @elinder#FutureParliament
— Tharindi H (@tharindi_h) November 14, 2016
Lack of data in success of digi democracy initiatives. Engage more ppl or just more efficient for alrdy engaged?@vboelman#FutureParliament
— Hansard Society (@HansardSociety) November 14, 2016
2nd panel at @HansardSociety#FutureParliament on Restoration & Renewal. Main theme now falling in love with the problem, not the solution pic.twitter.com/uWsanLp4uM
— Ed Greig (@edgreig) November 14, 2016
Sense4us is a project funded from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (contract number 611242)
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