Make IT Policy

Liberal Democrat IT Online Policy Consultation

The party has now posted a new IT policy paper online in PDF format.

If the people on the working group decide to have an email consultation list or an accessible website that allows comments, I’ll post details here as well.

The Federal Policy Committee is setting up a Policy Working Group on these issues, to be chaired by Dr Julian Huppert MP.

The working group will review all aspects of policy on IT and the internet. It will be necessary to give significant attention to intellectual property issues, with particular attention to their application to the digital economy.

The group will take forward the issues raised by the conference motion Freedom, Creativity and the Internet adopted by the Spring Conference 2010.

Party members interested in joining the group should contact Debbie Enever on d.enever@libdems.org.uk for more details. The final deadline for applications is 6 August 2010.

Richard and I were shooting the breeze and we realised that our former version of this site replicated many of the techniques used by WordPress – although mostly via manual means. So as an experiment, and to provide a model for other party groups wishing to consult on policy, we’ve converted the site to WordPress and created a template that replicated our old site.

The one thing that this will let us easily do is post updates on IT related issues (such as ID cards) and easily allow comments on the site without all the hassle this caused on the old site!

Although the policy outlined in this website has now been adopted by the party, we are keen to get input and advice from members, supporters and other interested parties to ensure that it remains up to date and relevant. The Liberal Democrats believe strongly in consulting and campaigning with the communities that we are part of. In this particular case we are interested in hearing from the internet community with policy ideas and reaction to the ideas put forward in our policy paper. There are two primary opportunities for feedback:

1. Joining the discussion in our email group
2. Direct comments on the policy paper

You do not need to be a party member to participate in any part of the process.

If you wish, you can download the consultation paper in Adobe PDF format or access this site via your PDA using Avantgo.com. It is also designed to be easily accessible on talking browsers and can even be viewed on some modern mobile phones.

I look forward to hearing your views.