Mapping things in Perry Vale

For the record, here's a Streetmap.co.uk view that includes all of Perry Vale Ward (and surroundings - so don't take it as definitive, and do use the postcode search to check which ward your address is in if you're not sure).

It's not GIS; but I'll try blogging casework that's about places (potholes, litter, broken streetlights, and that sort of thing) with a map. Not the addresses of people who have casework, obviously!

Maybe I'll try GoogleEarth links too...

Remote control

Alesund harbour
Originally uploaded by John Paschoud.

I've been in Alesund, Norway (that "A" should have a little circle over it - but don't get me started on how hard Norwegian is!) all this week, at the annual conference of UNINETT (the Norwegian educational networking agency).

I'm still managing to keep a virtual presence in Perry Vale and Lewisham, though, and I'm making some progress on the issue of councillors being allowed to use casework software on their council-provided PCs; and on our ward advice surgery leaflets; and on a case about clearing up a fly-tip in Hindsley's Place.

Luckily this week hasn't included any v.important council meeting that I would have had to miss (even to mis-credit goals scored - sorry Darren!)

And (of course!) I've been working very hard for the British taxpayer, describing how we're doing national access management infrastructures for education (the Norwegians are doing something parallel). They're also a bit better than Britain at assuming wi-fi should be everywhere (and free in lots of places).

Proper Politics Breaks Out!

Tonight's first ordinary Full Council meeting (the AGM doesn't really count) was a blast! A well-packed public gallery, who nearly provoked Chair Barrie into chucking them out for rowdiness. A motion (to go around the where-to-put-the-new-school loop over again) from the LibDems, which (quite predictably) all the smaller parties voted for ...and so Labour lost (shock! horror!). Ron (Labour chief whip) was a little cross about two particular members who hadn't showed up - who (I think) might have been able to get us a score-draw.

Two more motions: To attempt a common-sense resolution for the 'Big Yellow Box site' in Grove Park (Tories); and to Recycle More (the Greens). Both of the 'this council believes Satan is a bad influence on our youth' variety (after some skilled amendment), so everyone voted for them, in a jolly mood. 60 (yes, sixty) written members questions to Mayor and Cabinet, with a lot of them wanting their chance to put a supplementary (== make a point) helped the whole proceedings to stretch into well after 10pm.

This all mostly served to prove that Council, whatever the party balance, can only do it's worst and ask the Mayor very politely if he'd look into something. Good for stable progress perhaps, but it can't have looked incredibly democratic to some of the spectators. At this rate we'll have to start making up interesting council motions in Labour Group again!

Casework software

This may well be a shameless plug (Interest to declare here, etc, because I'm strongly associated with CFL), but...

I got my up-to-date-and-paid-for copy of CFL Caseworker installed (on my desktop PC and my non-council laptop) on Sunday, and started setting up standard letters and similar; and it's genuinely much better than previous versions I've used or tested. The more casework you do (with oft-repeated issues and some constituents who tend to be 'frequent flyers'), the more efficient it gets.

It would be nice if there was a way to share standard lists of agencies etc (that are common to all elected representatives in the same borough, for example - I feel an XML data exchange schema coming on here...) No doubt if I start using it 'in anger' (sometimes literally) I'll think of some more functional requirements to go in the future versions pot.

I've asked Susan to show me how the official council web casework system is supposed to work, to give it a 'fair hearing', but I've heard so many negative reports of it from other councillors.

It will also be nice if I can succeed in persuading the Head of IT and the Head of Law at Lewisham that Caseworker, and the equivalent packages produced or recommended by the other parties (I know the LibDems have a very similar package), can be installed on council-issued laptops.

The best (funniest) argument I've heard so far is that this is deemed "political software" (a term I've not heard before, in my many years in both IT and politics). Barring "software that can be used for political purposes" (like, producing an election leaflet with Microsoft Word?) is much like that new offence of "being in possession of articles that might be of use to a terrorist" - I've always assumed that things like pencils, toilet rolls, and cheese sandwiches are probably of as much use to "a terrorist" as they are to any other person; but it's nice to know our valiant security services have an extra reason available to keep them locked-up ;->.

If our dutiful and appropriately cautious council officers thought about this rationally for a moment, they would realise that all councillors have signed-up to an agreement not to use any council resources for 'political campaigning' purposes - and we would be in trouble if we did. They (council officers) are not expected to put annoying technical restrictions in place to prevent us breaking the rules!

So little time...

Oh dear! I've left it far too long now ...not for lack of things to post, just time to get around to doing it. I'll start by making a list, rather than trying to pile them all into one (yes, I know I should try a wiki instead for more structured stuff...)

1. First meeting with the Head of IT Strategy
2. Being a Road-Warrior of the e-Government Highways Committee
   (and I hereby bag that for an alternative blog title, if someone else hasn't already)
3. Our first proper new-style advice surgery session
4. Forest Hill Day, and welcome meetings-again
5. A Planning power of Emergency Conservation
6. Not the paperless office

I've attracted a couple of anonymous comments to older posts; so I can't tell if they're from someone whose opinions I care about, or not. Perhaps you'd like to let me know. I can't be bothered to switch on paranoid-level security (unless it becomes annoying).

Some IT requirements

Spent today at a library project board meeting in Edinburgh... well, 3 hours of today, and the rest waiting for Easyjet and trains. So (as well as some 'proper' work) I set up a meeting with Simon Berlin (Head of IT) for Thursday to start discussing how the council can start properly resourcing IT for councillors to use effectively. Also spotted confusing words in the draft of our ward surgery leaflet (so had Susan), and corrected them. (Our first surgery session at St Georges is arranged for this Saturday).

I collected my standard-issue councillors' laptop on Monday evening, before an unremarkable Labour Group meeting. They're not-bad Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook tablet PCs, which is nice for paperless reading; but just as big and heavy as my LSE Dell laptop - without the extra security of requiring a smartcard as well as password; which is ironic as the Fujitsu IT support guys seem overly concerned about security of access, but without really understanding what they're protecting, or where the loopholes might be. So the laptops are 'locked-down' without any administrator priviledges, and the council VPN does things like filtering URLs with Chinese-like ruthlessness - including lewisham.org.uk which doesn't appear to exist from a Lewisham Council web browser! Well, I suppose that will stop them ever seeing this!

Ordered a copy of the Caseworker software package from CFL, which of course I can't officially install on Lewisham's laptop. Think I'll manage, somehow...

The IT needs of councillors (which I'll discuss with Simon) must include having proper network access from all the town hall rooms in which we have meetings, so we can be relatively paperless. Astoundingly this is "less than straightforward", and there seems (after a bit of scanning with my XDA) to be a mess of different wi-fi coverage there, with a subscribed BTConnect service dominating the council-installed network; and lots of holes in coverage. They've had over 5 years since I must have started pressing for this, but I've promised to wait until Thursday to find out why.

Got another interesting case (as email) too, on which more later.

Back to work

Well, I had the short break, but not for those reasons; and it was in the wettest bit of France!

The ansaphone at home had picked up one personal case (a secondary school admissions appeal - the season for those is just upon us). The Head of IT Strategy decided to phone my mobile instead... for a looong time (at Euro-roaming rates)... and explain further about the website cock-up... and tell me that Mayor Steve has been on his back too about IT for councillors, and "would he set up some meetings with Cllr John Paschoud to discuss/resolve" (i.e. don't annoy him about it any more)... He suggested we should include review of public-facing web content in this, too.

Poor Simon! I don't really want to be his worst nightmare, and there is scope to make a few things better. Paul Bentley (LibDem councillor in Lee Green) left a supportive comment to an earlier post on this, and I'll have to think (or ask Ron) about what the PC way of consulting non-Labour councillors would be.