Thanks for all the helpful comments. Let me assure you, I’m looking at all of them.
Matt Wardman has a different take on the issue. He’s saying there’s no need for any guidelines. For Matt, the civil service code will suffice. I’d be interested to know if current blogging civil servants think that code provides the clarity you need to blog sensibly without fear that you’re doing something wrong.
11 comments ↓
I wrote something on this myself last night, reaching much the same conclusion. If the Civil Service Code doesn’t cover blogging satisfactorily, then the Civil Service Code is at fault, and needs to be reviewed.
But a brief guidance note, based word-for-word on the BBC’s (just revised) policy would be a useful complement. Just for added clarity… and as an explicit statement that yes, we have considered blogging, and decided it’s OK. At the moment, the general perception is that blogging is off limits. A separate ‘guidance note’ would have highly symbolic value.
Tom
Thanks for the link. Having some experience of using and developing guidelines/business systems in the public sector (mainly local government, but also in security cleared areas – and I’ll not be any more specific than that in public), I think that flexibility and ease of understanding is key. And to me that implies a minimalist approach (which can be a tougher sell in the organisation than something that generates more paper and work).
Communicating principles and expectations is important. Not necessarily “training” – a 3 minute slot in a Team Brief by a respected manager will have more impact.
And of course, the shorter it is, the more easily it will be remembered. And there will (perhaps) be less grist for lawyers to grind.
Flexibility is important in a diverse sector – I’d also expect some difference between (e.g.,) The Number 10 delivery unit, English Heritage (not sure if they are under the CSC, but you see my point), various Local Authorities, the HMRC, the Rivers Authority (is it still called that?), and the DVLA. All have different dimensions of security – and could fit within the same set of principles (CSC) with local policies.
But it is an excellent idea to get the widest possible input from serving civil servants.
That has been pretty much my position from the beginning – and I started my blog to test the proposition (so far, its still there). However, I think of the code as the rules, and think that some poeple still need some kind of hand holding / guidance etc about the practicalities, or at least examples of how the code would apply to online participation generally (and there is after all a pretty good recent example to base that on…)
Jeremy: I think some form of readily-available education is a fine idea.
(waits for a Tory pseudo-blogger or party hack to portray the above notion as a formal proposal for ‘re-education’ as part of some imagined Stalinist nightmare)
Can I offer training courses…
.
MW
There is a lot to be said for sticking to some simple principles rather than ending up with a long list of rules. But just saying that the CSC (or anything else applies) misses one important dimension, the question of what the other side of the deal is.
In some ways, I think it is more important and more urgent to be clear whether bloggers are to be welcomed, to be tolerated or to be discouraged – the behaviours of the bloggers will in large measure be set by the environment and expectations. As long as it feels slightly under cover, slightly unapproved, slightly risky and inherently subsversive.
If the context is that blogging is seen positively, the corollary that it is of course not an exception to the rule that behaviour needs to be consistent with the code should not in any way be felt as a burden.
Tom, all I would say is don’t forget local government where the code doesn’t really apply. there’s enormous benefit for a lot of LG staff in blogging as i’m sure you can see but it’s being held up largely by fear of the consequences. think of staff managing all the greys in parking for one or social work. some leadership on this matter outside just whitehall would be more than extremely useful. leadership being the key bit.
Tom
What a refreshing approach to the subject, and it is mostly a hard core of us who seem to take you up on your offers.
There is space here for guidance. I would certainly blog if there was air-cover. At the moment the place is too stuffy to allow it.
Raise a grievance, raise a blog, raise a doubt in a policy, these are not ways civil servants are supposed to behave. It is a collectivist and benevolent g***g most of the time.
see what they have in east lothian schools sector
http://edubuzz.pbwiki.com/socialmediastaff
Alex,
That’s a really smart set of guidelines. Do you know how East Lothian came to develop them?
[...] Aside from the rumpus, the most notable feature has been – and this may be the first time it has happened – the use by Tom Watson MP (and Cabinet Office Minister) of his blog to launch an impromptu consultation about how (and if) Civil Service bloggers should be regulated. [...]
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