Reaching in? The potential for E-petitions in local government in the United Kingdom

This article considers the extent to which petitions and e-petitions might allow citizens to ‘reach in’ to local authorities in the United Kingdom. It examines how e-petitions sit against wider debates about the use of technology and digital democracy and the extent to which petitions systems might align with traditional approaches to representative democracy. It highlights that, as with many other participative initiatives, digital or otherwise, there are a variety of issues and risks associated with e-petitions, including those associated with broad socio-economic factors, and others that are more specifically related to the use of e-petitions. However, drawing on existing examples of e-petitions systems in the UK, it suggests that, designed well, they may have potential value, not simply in terms of enabling ‘voice’ and participation, but also in helping educate and inform petitioners about local democracy and decision-making

Infrastructure, planning and the command of time

​Governments in many countries have sought to accelerate the time taken to make decisions on major infrastructure projects, citing problems of ‘delay’. Despite this, rarely has the time variable been given careful empirical or conceptual attention in decision-making generally, or in infrastructure decision-making specifically. This paper addresses this deficit by analysing decision-making on two categories of major infrastructure in the UK – transport and electricity generation – seeking both to generate better evidence of the changes to decision times in recent decades, and to generate insights from treating time as resource and tracking its (re)allocation. We find that reforms introduced since 2008 have done relatively little to alter overall decision times, but that there are marked and revealing changes to the allocation of time between decision-making stages. While public planning processes have their time frames tightly regulated, aspects led by developers (e.g. pre-application discussion) are not; arranging finance can have a bigger effect on project time frames, and central government retains much flexibility to manage the flow of time. Speed-up reforms are also sectorally uneven in their reach. This indicates how arguments for time discipline falter in the face of infrastructure projects that remain profoundly politicised

Parliament and Citizens in the United Kingdom

The relationship that has developed between Parliament and citizen in the United Kingdom has been two-way and multi-faceted. This article examines the input achieved by citizen (as voter, constituent, and member of organised interest) through party, the MP, and the institution; and the output of Parliament to citizen through party, MP, and its own resources. The nature of and need for engagement have been exacerbated by recent scandals and both Houses of Parliament have sought to achieve greater direct engagement with the public through the use of the new social media. Citizens continue to distinguish between the local MP and the institution of which the MP is a member. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC