report: Hansard Society - Members Only?

About the communication of Westminster, including a section on new media.

Hansard Society - Members Only? report launched
Friday, May 20, 2005

Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye [was] launched on 24 May. Members Only? is the report of the Hansard Society Commission on the Communication of Parliamentary Democracy.

Chaired by David Puttnam, the Commission examines whether Parliament is failing in its democratic duty to communicate with the electorate. The report looks at the need to re-establish the crucial link between Parliament and the people, and sets out a practical route for much needed change.

Click here for a full list of Commission recommendations.

Click here for the Executive Summary.

Judging form the recommendation document, a bit thin as concerns new media broadly defined; recommentations limited to the Parliament website:

R15 A new Communications Department should establish effective processes to
manage, edit, develop and continually update the parliamentary website.

R16 The parliamentary website should be radically improved. At a minimum, it
should be consultative, interactive and easily navigable.

R17 An improved website should engage the widest range of citizens, using well-designed publicity and targeted advertising to help people understand that
there is a virtual route through which they have easy access to their Parliament

The tip of the iceberg I would have thought; but surely there is more in the full report.