In our discussion, Paul and I agreed that policy analysis and development are central activities of government, yet the use of information, communication and collaboration tools are often not as well developed, Perri 6’s excellent book e-governance being a rare contribution in this area (E-governance: Styles Of Political Judgment In The Information Age Polity)

Web 2.0 technologies in particular offer innovations for policy development to better address complex policy problems, particularly those that cross departmental or portfolio responsibilities, and even government jurisdictional boundaries. And these are increasingly the problems with which governments are confronted, especially those we like to call “wicked”.

The advent of the internet and the associated evolution of e-government have driven a debate about the capacity for new networked ICTs to break down the silos of government, and to build more joined-up or holistic government. One stop shops and shared services have provided more joined-up service delivery. But the missing piece is developing more joined-up policy.

Interdepartmental Committees and inquiries are the traditional ‘technologies’ for cross-agency policy development. Such activities could be enhanced with web 2.0 technologies, for example via a private government website that brings together data and discussion from relevant agencies. Wiki tools could be used by actors for developing and drafting policy documents, summarizing policy settings and stresses, and identifying possible directions.

This could be supplemented by data mashups that draw data from the different sources to provide a more whole-of-government perspective on the policy problem. Presentation of that data geographically would be further advantageous. Blogs could be used by policy developers to debate and discuss such things as emerging findings, policy solutions and implementation arrangements. In this way, the collective intelligence and expertise from separate, but interlinking, agencies, policy domains and jurisdictional areas, could be enabled to better understand and respond to difficult policy problems.

Of course, the technology component is likely to be the least of our challenges. For the most part, the tools and platforms that would give rise to this kind of collaborative model of policy development are all available right now. And there are some examples you could look at to give a hint of what’s possible – the story around the Intellepedia solution adopted by the homeland security agencies in the US might be one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia).

The real challenge will be cultural and organisational. After all, in order to maximize the capacities of such technologies, government agencies would need to ensure, for example, that experts with the appropriate knowledge are able to freely contribute, and not be restricted through the traditional filtering of seniority. This approach – which Peter Drucker once described as a bias in favour of “contribution, not status” – ushers in a stringent doctrine for work and interaction in government which could test some of the more entrenched instincts that experience suggests might work in exactly the opposite direction.

And on top of that, “policy 2.0” would have to come to grips with the fact that in many cases, the ‘evidence’ and ‘expertise’ that good policy needs will come not from traditional experts or sources of apparently authoritative knowledge, but from customers, service users and their families or carers and a much wider range of genuine expertise across the community than we might normally assume. This ability to make our policy systems both smarter and more open at the same time is the focus of recent work by Beth Noveck, now running the open and transparent government program in the Obama administration (Wiki-Government: How open-source technology can make government decision-making more expert and more Democratic. Journal of Personal Democracy, Issue #7, Winter 2008)
The implications of “policy 2.0” are every bit as demanding and full of promise as the other dimensions of government 2.0. Their capacity not just to change the rhythms and practices of policy making but, in the process, to end up with better policy, is an enticing prospect.