Iain Dale

Iain Dale, of Iain Dale’s Diary fame (the #1 political blog by traffic in the UK, I’m advised) will be chairing our session on blogging, social media and new media at Government 2010.

If you don’t know Iain here’s a little more back ground…

I’m also delighted to announce that on Iain’s panel will be Mick Fealty of Slugger O’Toole and the Daily Telegraph blogs. 

Mick Fealty

Mick Fealty is a writer, analyst and the founding editor of Slugger O’Toole, Northern Ireland’s leading political blog – and one of the few regional blogs to have broken into the UK ‘premier league’.  

So with such blogging glitterati this discussion will be one not to be missed. 

I also hope to be able to announce more speakers for this session very shortly.

Neil is Head of Corporate Digital Channels at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Neil recently wrote what has become an infamous strategy for digital engagement using Twitter which has since been adopted and adapted by organisations worldwide.

He has spent much of the past five years trying to make online engagement part of everybody’s job in two government departments (CLG and now BIS), in particular helping policy teams and Ministers open up the debate online by providing the tools, guidance and support to make it happen.

 Neil has a personal blog at http://neilojwilliams.net/missioncreep and is @neillyneil on Twitter.

David Price CEO of Debategraph

David Price will be an expert panelist on the G2010 discussion being chaired by Harry Metcalfe on consultation.

David Price co-founded of Debategraph (www.debategraph.org) with the former Australian cabinet minister Peter Baldwin. Debategraph is a creative commons social venture that combines argument visualization with collaborative wiki editing to make the best arguments on all sides of complex public debates freely available to all and continuously open to challenge and improvement by all. Debategraph was piloted with the UK Prime Minister’s Office and is currently being used by The Independent newspaper and the European Commission, and as a collaborative learning tool in various universities and schools. David has a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in organizational learning and environmental policy, and prior to founding Debategraph worked as a public policy advisor with a focus on public service broadcasting.

Since being elected to Parliament in June 2001 to represent the people of West Bromwich East Tom has served as a Government Whip and Defence Minister as well as Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Treasury.

Tom established the Power of Information Task Force to advance the recommendations in the Power of Information Report by Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg.

In a speech outlining his ideas for the future direction of government policy in this area, Tom stated his belief in the power of mass collaboration.

I’m delighted to announce that Adam Afriyie MP, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Universities & Skills – focussing on Science and Innovation – has agreed to speak at Government 2010 on October 22nd.

Prior to taking on his current shadow role, Adam was Conservative Parliamentary Leader for TMT – Technology, Media and Telecoms.  He was also appointed to the Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, co-chaired by John Redwood and Simon Wolfson, in 2006.

Adam Afriyie MP

Adam’s business experience is well recognized.  He was a regional finalist in the 2003 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year awards, and in 2005 he sold his controlling interest in DeHavilland Information Services to EMAP plc.

In 1993 he was founding director of Connect Support Services – an IT services company pioneering fixed-price support.  Connect was recognised in the Virgin Sunday Times Fasttrack 100 of Britain’s fastest growing private companies in 2002, and he now acts as non-executive Chairman.

He is also non-executive Chairman of Adfero Ltd – a news and information services company.

Harry Metcalfe

Harry’s session is entitled, “Digital Engagement is Everyone’s Job: Formal and Informal Consultation on the Web.”

According to Harry, “Government is under pressure to make formal consultation more inclusive, particularly online, and many people are making great progress. How can we help more organisations to do the same? And perhaps more importantly, how can we embed a culture of digital engagement into all of government, from politicians and policy-makers to front-line staff?”

Included in the panel will be Tom Watson MP, ex-minister for Digital Engagement; Neil Williams, Social Media Guru, BIS and David Price, CEO, DebateGraph

Harry is the founder of The Dextrous Web, a startup founded to help organisations – mostly in the public sector – get things right on the web. The Dextrous Web’s clients include The Cabinet Office, The Central Office of Information, The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Guardian News & Media.

Harry is also on the boards of the Open Rights Group, an NGO which campaigns to protect and preserve our digital rights, and the FreeLegalWeb, a community interest company with plans to make the law easier to find, read and understand.

 He is particularly interested in making public sector information discoverable and resuable, reforming copyright law, making the public consultation process more transparent and accountable and strengthening the Freedom of Information Act.

Tanya Oliver, from Kent County Council, will be joining the G2010 discussion on Government Service Centres.

Tanya Oliver is Director of Strategic Development and Public Access at Kent County Council (KCC), within the Chief Executive’s Department.

Her career has taken her into the private sector, with experience in retail and franchising and for the last several years into the public sector in a variety of roles including economic development, sustainable business, communications and health and social care.  Tanya led the co-ordination of the restructuring of Kent County Council following the Children Act.  She also worked closely with the NHS during her time in Social Services, handling highly political issues and transforming the county’s performance in these areas.  Tanya also managed KCC’s Communication and Media Centre for seven months in 2008 during a period of significant change, modernising the way the council communicates and reducing communication costs across the Authority.

Tanya is a key lead for encouraging and managing innovation and transformation and leads on a number of strategic, cutting-edge, multi-agency developments and programmes around customer access and customer services, process redesign, graduate retention and creative industries, specifically around film and television.  Many of these programmes have received national & international media coverage and attention. Tanya has also focused on international partnerships and practices and is currently working on a public sector franchising innovation for public access.

Tanya is a member of the Chief Executive’s Management Team and is responsible for over 230 staff, including KCC’s Contact Kent call centre.  This includes Consumer Direct, which manages Trading Standards calls on behalf of the Office of Fair Trading for 74 local authorities in the south east of England.  She is the county lead on joining up access across the public sector in physical front-office locations and by telephone and web.  This includes 14 local government authorities, Kent Fire, Kent Police, 3 Primary Care Trusts, the voluntary sector and other public-funded bodies such as Business Link.  Kent is a pilot authority for “Total Place”, which Tanya is the Kent lead for.  She also leads on KCC’s office transformation programme, “Better work places”.

Whilst Tanya’s career has taken her into the private sector, her passion is for the public sector and in particular customer access and creative industries.