[Vanessa Ricketts]

I tend to agree with Ed too.

We are not permitted access to Facebook, it is a banned site along with Ebay, MySpace, Hotmail etc to avoid abuse during work hours, and it would not be possible to allow access to a site to a specific user.

[Vanessa Ricketts]

I should have also said that, of course, anything posted on Facebook becomes the property of Facebook and this could have implications across the board if you're looking at uploading reviews etc.

Another way to involve the public in Scrutiny at a more local level would be to set up a forum or twitter site on the Local Authority's extranet - this is something that I will be bringing up with Members at our next away day.

[Paul Dean]

vricketts Wrote:I should have also said that, of course, anything posted on Facebook becomes the property of Facebook and this could have implications across the board if you're looking at uploading reviews etc.

I really don't think this is the case (any longer).

But would anyone want to use Facebook to publish reviews in any case? - Surely its use would be to highlight some scrutny projects, targetting an otherwise hard to reach audience on suitably engaging topics to solicit ideas and comments. You might provide links, or publish photos if relevant, but not upload documents to the site - I suggest.

Re the technicalities of providing access - many enlightened employers have a balanced and reasonable approach to sites such as Facebook and Ebay giving limited "off-peak", time-limited access with various conditions. It is obviously technically possible to provide individual or group access if required where a business case can be made - as is the case here. I recall a scrutiny I once did (years ago) about sex shops licensing which, of course, required background research and therefore special Internet access privileges to a range of 'interesting' but banned sites! Those were the days.

[gareth davies]

Facebook maybe isn't the ideal vehicle for this kind of project per se; it's great for keeping in touch with elements of my extended family, but I'm not sure about it as a vehicle for informed debate.

There is a lot more that could be done using twitter, Facebook and the like to push information to anyone who's interested in what we do, but I'm not sure it's an evidence collection tool. So it could be good as a way of announcing a review, or of publicizing a meeting, but I think that would be its limits.

I think there probably is a need for a family of scrutiny related internet projects. The problem with the CfPS forum is that it isn't an everyday visit for me; when I'm at work I don't always have the time, and when I'm at home I'll be on one of the sites that represent my main interests outside work. (www.gwladrugby.com or www.draggedup.co.uk, or on eBay trying to find another cheap guitar...)

A blog / guest blogging / intermedia project called 'the scrutineer' might be interesting; I've thought about it myself, maybe modelled on http://www.citymayors.com/ or something similar. The objective would be to try and do two things at once; project the image of scrutiny as a profession outwards and also provide a reference point for local government professionals who're interested in scrutiny as well as for ourselves. Obviously that would be a major project, but it would probably fit with the debate about 'is scrutiny a profession'. Maybe if I can find a good cheap CMS and some design skills I might invest in some hosting and come back to that idea...

To come back to the original point though, I think it boils down to the push / pull technologies debate. Facebook and Twitter could be really good ways of pushing information out to people (John Prescott's campaign on Facebook, which I believe is guided by Alex 'Recess Monkey' Hilton is a good example of push campaigning via social networking sites) but in terms of puilling evidence in I think it's limited - the same probably goes for twitter.

[Craig Goodall]

Here at Walsall we have a quite active twitter page that is run by the press office (general not scrutiny specific although we are lobbying for one). I think twitter, rather than facebook, is a good method that scrutiny could use to generate local interest in scrutiny meetings. For example tweets could be made advertising meetings and requesting feedback on issues that are coming to scrutiny.

We have a member focus group looking into this issue at the moment so hopefully there will be some developments in the future on this.

[Earl Piggott-Smith]

Craig Goodall Wrote:Here at Walsall we have a quite active twitter page that is run by the press office (general not scrutiny specific although we are lobbying for one). I think twitter, rather than facebook, is a good method that scrutiny could use to generate local interest in scrutiny meetings. For example tweets could be made advertising meetings and requesting feedback on issues that are coming to scrutiny.

We have a member focus group looking into this issue at the moment so hopefully there will be some developments in the future on this.

I would support the idea of using twitter as opposed to facebook as problems already reffered to getting access to the site at work. As with all methods of networking, it does rely on maintaining interest beyond the initial launch and ensuring that it does what it does says on the tin - to use a well worn cliche. There is a need for people workign in overview and scrtuiny to be more proactive in both telling people what it has done but also what it can do. I think this idea is worth pursuing.