How well do Australian government sites meet WCAG 2.0? - still some way to go states new report

While I've not yet seen an official statement confirming whether Australian government will support the second version of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), there has been a report released by UsabilityOne reviewing 12 Federal Government websites against the guidelines.

The Accessibility Industry Report found a number of issues across the sites that would need to be addressed for them to be WCAG 2.0 compatible.

To quote UsabilityOne,

None of the websites audited adhere to all criteria in the latest accessibility guidelines.

Have you looked into making your site compliance with WCAG 2.0?

Or are you waiting for the official government position?

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UK government's HM Revenue & Customs service now collecting opinions online alongside tax

The UK government's HM Revenue & Customs service (roughly equivalent to the ATO) has launched an online consultation site seeking public input into its proposed charter.

Named Have your say the site asks citizens to answer questions around the proposed charter and provide their views of what it contains and should contain.

It's a fairly basic consultation process that could be supported through many survey tools, however it is equally very powerful in inviting citizens to directly comment on policy before it becomes enshrined in law.

Over in the US the new President has also instituted a mandatory public review stage for most legislation, making it available online for public scrutiny and comment before it is considered by the Senate.

These steps represent the scope of the shift the internet can provide democracies, taking representative democracy back to the people via direct policy consultation.

Naturally not all citizens choose to comment, however the process can add an additional level of realism to government legislation, ensuring a higher consultation bar than has been possible using paper-based communications tools.

I'm looking forward to posting about the first Australian initiative of this type - so if anyone know of one, please drop me a line.

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BarCamp Canberra coming up - 28 March

The second BarCamp Canberra has been confirmed for 28 March, to be held at the ANU.

In case you're not familiar with the concept (quoting from the official site),

A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. Here is a quote from the wikipedia description:
'BarCamp is an international network of unconferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies and social protocols.'

BarCamps are a global phenomenon, regularly held in at least a dozen countries, from the US to India to New Zealand.

The UK has previously held a very successful Government-only BarCamp and, due to the nature of Canberra, many attendees of the previous Canberra BarCamp last year worked within or in areas related to government.

BarCamps are not-for-profit and cost nothing to attend.

More information is available at the official BarCamp Canberra site or at the Facebook group.

Podcasts of previous presentations are available online at http://barcampcanberra.org/blog/podcasts/

Note that I am personally on the committee coordinating the event and will be presenting on the day.

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What would you do? Balancing intranet needs across corporate and local objectives

James Robertson of Step Two Designs has published an interesting scenario regarding how a mid-sized government agency can meet global needs (corporate communications, top-level strategy, culture), while also meeting varying local needs.

He's opened the floor for ideas on how to most effectively support the needs of both management and staff.

Judging by the comments so far, this isn't a unique challenge. A number of Departments and agencies are wrestling with similar scenarios and the tensions between top-down and bottom-up needs.

Take a look over at Tackling the global-local challenge?



Type rest of the post here

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Government 2.0: The Rise of the Goverati

The US has had a watershed year for government and political use of the internet.

The Obama campaign has triggered a series of initiatives both at public sector and political levels by demonstrating that millions of people are willing and able to engage and mobilise online.

Now the US is beginning to talk about the rise of the new breed of public servants and political players. Those that are web and social media savvy and looking to use the online channel for the benefit of citizens.

This is covered in a new post in ReadWriteWeb, Government 2.0: The Rise of the Goverati.

I'm keeping a close eye on this trend.

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