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Federal Government to start social media work – Government 2.0 Taskforce report

David Correll on May 4, 2010 | Government | Comments (1)

There has been much talk about the Government 2.0 Taskforce report since is was released in December.

Should the Australian Government become more involved in social media channels and have a more open and communicative engagement with the Australian community? Of course.

Nicholas Gruen, a prominent Australian economist and the CEO of Lateral Economics and Peach Home Loans was commissioned to undertake the report and submitted his final copy to The Hon. Lindsay Tanner, MP
Minister for Finance and Deregulation, and Senator the Hon Joseph Ludwig
Special Minister of State and Cabinet Secretary in Dec 2009. The report can be viewed here.

This is a positive step as a number of key recommendations on social media was submitted to the Federal Government, detailing how to improve engagement with the Australian public through social channels such as Twitter and Facebook. Large numbers of corporations have already moved into the social space to improve customer relations and support, many governments overseas have moved onto Twitter to provide direct information and help reach people they may not generally be able to communicate as effectively with.

It is good to see the Australian government weighing up their options in this fast paced online space.

Now in March 2010 the Federal Government has submitted their official response to the Government 2.0 Taskforce report.

The 13 fundamental recommendations by Nicholas Gruen and his team have had a response by the Government which we have summarised below.

– 1 – A declaration of open government by the Australian Government: AGREED
– 2 – Coordinate with leadership, guidance and support: AGREED
– 3 – Improve guidance and require agencies to engage online: AGREED (Some reservations)
– 4 – Encourage public servants to engage online: AGREED
– 5 – Awards for individuals and agencies that use Govt 2.0 tools: AGREED
– 6 – Make public sector information open, accessible and reusable: AGREED (With reservations)
– 7 – Addressing issues in the operation of copyright: AGREED (Disagreed to moving copyright control functions to new department)
– 8 – Information publication scheme: NOTED
– 9 – Accessibility compliance between agencies and AGIMO: AGREED
– 10 – Better risk assessment of Web 2.0 practices: AGREED
– 11 – Privacy and confidentiality: AGREED (Already in operation)
– 12 – Definition of Commonwealth Record and better metadata standards: AGREED
– 13 – Encourage info-philanthropy: DEFER CONSIDERATION

The full response by the Government can be accessed here.

While 12 of the 13 points have been agreed, or agreed with some modification this can be seen as an positive step by the government to embrace Web 2.0 technologies, something it’s citizens are much already apart of.

Whilst some social media policies already exist in Government agencies, I look forward to seeing more social engagements with Government departments to what has already been established.