Enabling E-Democracy - Disability, Social Exclusion and ICT
The Reform Of Civil Society
SCARCITY AND UBIQUITY
3.1. Once a technology, technique or piece of information achieves a critical mass, the lack of it changes from being a problem of scarcity to a problem of ubiquity. The simplest example is that of telling the time. Until the construction of railways established a requirement for common national time keeping, in turn leading to the multiplication of public clocks and private watches, it was not particularly injurious to a person's prospects if he could not tell the time; nowadays not to be able to tell the time or not to own a watch would be regarded as idiosyncratic at the very least. In ICT terms, for example, it is already becoming clear that access to e-mail was a problem of scarcity as little as a year ago but it is soon to become a problem of ubiquity; the establishment of free Internet service providers and the fall in the cost of telephone access has triggered a massive rise in access. As the cost differential between digital and analogue communication widens, those without digital access may lose contact with certain information providers.
Each technological development which reaches critical mass requires new skills and new kinds of knowledge. When documents which were once hard to come by are now freely available there is a higher expectation that their contents will be known.
3.2. As we have noted, availability does not necessarily guarantee accessibility. There will always be intermediaries to interpret the meaning of original source text but many information providers are saving time and money by referring searchers to source text in the first instance; and as source text precedes intermediary commentary it usually does not point to it. The Internet also makes intermediary analysis much more difficult because there is not the hierarchy of format which obtains in print. It is easy to assign weight to content according to whether it is published in a book, a learned journal, a broad sheet or a tabloid newspaper but not so easy when all of the content appears in a more or less undifferentiated form on the Internet.
CONSULTATIVE STRUCTURES AND OPEN NETWORK CONSULTATION IN CIVIL SOCIETY
3.3. It might be thought that the key to access by disabled people and other socially excluded groups to the democratic process in the Information age lies in the discussion in Section 2. But the central core of the problem concerns the way in which the existence of ICTs will change the way in which politicians, as Ministers and Legislators, conduct their relationships with the public.
3.4. Socially disadvantaged people in general and disabled people in particular spent much of the 20th Century painstakingly constructing a massive and intricate structure of service providing, supportive, representative, lobbying, consumer and self-help organisations. Many of these which were founded with religious or philanthropic motives began the last Century as somewhat patronising but as the Century wore on most of the large organisations concerned with disabled people became partnerships of disabled people and trusted intermediaries.
As their strength, coherence and representational credentials increased, they became part of the consultative machinery for both legislature of Government.
The most recent example of this was the ability of the major disability organisations to negotiate Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and, shortly afterwards, to force Parliament to pass some anti discrimination legislation. The process was slow. The Government might propose a new measure in a Green Paper. It would then be put out to consultation and the executive body of a disability charity might then discuss the proposal, open up the issue to all members for comment while, at the same time, proposing certain amendments to the proposal. After a period of discussion the membership would make its views clear to its executive body which might then hold detailed discussions with officials.
The Minister would then present a White Paper to Parliament. Consultation and/or lobbying would continue. A bill would be published and until its final signature by the Monarch the lobbying would continue. In this way, disabled people were deeply involved in issues which particularly affected their lives.
3.5. ICT systems now make it possible to post a proposal on a Web site and invite comment from any member of the public without the intermediary support or barrier of civil society.
Already the distinction between Green and White Papers is being blurred. For a variety of reasons, all good in themselves, it is also likely that the legislative process will be made more efficient. The critical factor is the possibility that Open Network Consultation (ONC), theoretically available to all, will be inaccessible to many at the same time as traditional consultative processes are made redundant. If, for example, a Green Paper is issued in late January with a closing date for consultation at the end of March, this cuts out the usual representative processes if an organisation's executive body meets quarterly in mid January and mid April. The ten-week period of consultation looks perfectly adequate but it is not helpful if those directly affected by a proposal cannot access the ONC process.
Further, some disabled people with cognitive problems have naturally come to rely on trusted intermediaries who may be accorded less status in a consultation where high value is placed on direct communication with and from disabled people themselves. In a representative structure the intermediary has conferred status, in ONC she has none.
3.6. It is impossible to meet the problems in 3.5. above by calling for the consultative process to be slowed down. The new mechanisms place a heavy requirement on Parliament and Government to make ONC accessible, not just available to all citizens. This not only requires the technological measures described in Section 2. (optimal systems design and, where necessary, special accessibility peripherals) but also a different regime for trusted intermediaries of disabled people which we will consider in Section 4. below.
LOBBYING
3.7. In an environment of unsolicited information input the information professionals and those who pay them will have a great advantage over the rest of society. Imagine what would have happened during discussion of the Disability Discrimination Act (UK Parliament, 1995) Clause on the minimum size of companies in respect of compliance if there had been an Internet free-for-all, with lobbyists sending e-mail to MPs. There would have been direct competition between the whole weight of the SME sector and the disability sector. While this might have made no difference to a whipped vote it might have had a bearing on 'Cross Bench' peers in particular. Companies are not likely to pay large sums for public relations if they do not yield results and if they do yield results then the richer the coalition the more likely it is to achieve a desired result. There is also a problem with lobbyist attribution. The Internet provides a variety of ways in which self-appointed organisations can claim to represent the best interests of people if not the people themselves.
In a highly structured, traditional, deliberative, consultative process credentials validation was part of the process but in an ONC situation it is almost the essence of the exercise that it is credentials free. There is bound to be some celebration from various quarters in the disability sector that intermediaries can be cut out of the process but the 'down side' of this is the credentials free consultation. The alternative is, of course, for the highest value in the consultative process being placed on disabled people themselves but this causes problems for those who cannot operate effectively without trusted intermediaries.
INCLUSION, TARGETS AND EFFICIENCY
3.8. The representative process provided a degree of refinement which might easily be lost in ONC. Whereas representation can adduce a series of complex arguments to deal with a minority of difficult cases, ONC tends to focus on a small number of key issues. Current practice tends to pose certain questions to the consultees which naturally focuses the majority of replies round the questions posed. There is little sympathy when a consultee comments that the questions are the wrong ones or that a vital question has been omitted. No matter how sound the answer to the unasked question, its ranking is likely to be low compared with answers to the questions initially asked. There is no reason why ONC should not be as qualitatively based as representation, where quantity is just one aspect but there is every reason to believe that quantitative considerations, focused on a few key questions, will provide the main outcome of ONC processes. This will be majoritarian but not democratic.
3.9. Quantitative response analysis, allied to the current practice of target setting and the production of 'deliverables' tends to lead to the relegation of difficult and complex cases. Unfortunately, many of the needs of severely disabled people are difficult to analyse, complex to meet and expensive to implement.
DIFFERENTIATION
3.10. The single conclusion from this discussion is that ONC must be differentiated, with a variety of channels provided so that those directly affected and their trusted intermediaries have a different channel from the general citizen response.
In this way special expertise and special interests can be easily identified and, if appropriate, handled in a different way or weighted differently from more general advice and comment. Without such differentiation the whole notion of civil society as a source of leaven or moderation is put in doubt; the price for consultative 'flatness' may be consultative shallowness.