Open Council Network for Councils

There are three major challenges that local councils face that OCN can support you with: internal visibility, external transparency and research and analysis.

Internal visibility

Internal visibility means helping councils understand what other parts of their own council are doing.

Information flow through councils is often slow and challenging, and having a clean, easily-read and digested analysis of what everyone in the council has been doing helps with council efficiency, and generally makes council work more effective and engaging for everyone involved.

How?

1. Provide a weekly summary of council activity to all councillors and civil servants.
2. Provide a searchable history of council activity.
3. Combine weekly summaries with tailored training and automated research for councillors and civil servants.

External transparency

External transparency means helping citizens understand what councils are doing.

This is one of the most powerful ways to improve democratic health.

It makes citizens feel empowered, which improves their perception of government, and generally improves their happiness and mental health.

It allows citizens to express their views and so improves the democratic outcomes of government.

It lets citizens see how much is happening in their neighbourhood and how positive it is, and generally improves the opinion of the society and council in the eyes of the people.

How?

1. Automatically transcribe and summarise council meetings.
2. Publish weekly summaries of council activity to engaged citizens and journalists.
3. Improve the presentation of council consitution and other formal documents.
4. Promote readership of council activity with targeted campaigns.

Research and Analysis

Research and analysis means helping members and officers contextualise decisions, understanding what has been done before in their own council, and what other councils are doing.

This helps improve, support and speed up decision making.

It gives councillors a wider network of experts to call on for support, quantified justification and guidance for their decisions, and generally improves the healthy operation of local democracy in the UK as a whole.

How?

1. Receive on-demand topic-specific summaries of council activity across the UK e.g. which councils are considering their spending on SEND, or giving planning permission to casinos, and what arguments and decisions are being made?
2. Answer questions about council structure e.g. which councils have separate Audit and Standards Committees; how many scrutiny committees do other councils have and how often do they meet; how often do other councils do freedom of the borough?

How to get started?

Send us an email at community@opencouncil.network and we'll be delighted to help.

Don't know who you'll need to engage with internally? Don't worry, we'll work with you to identify stakeholders and build internal consensus.