Some food for thought:

More and more citizens and small businesses are using digital media. By March 2006, for example, 60% of homes in the UK had internet access and there were 11.1 million broadband connections in homes and small businesses.

Citizens are beginning to expect their elected members to be IT literate and to be able to engage with them online.

Disengaged groups such as the 16-24 year olds occupy this space. Consider that UK-wide three quarters of them go online at least once a week and 70% have experimented with social networking sites. eDemocracy provides an opportunity to improve that engagement.

eDemocracy can help elected members to save time and achieve a better work / life balance by using IT tools such as email and contact management alongside more traditional methods to organize and manage work.

As community leaders, elected members will increasingly be expected to ensure that robust processes and strong communications exist between all of the stakeholders. You will also be expected to play a leading role in defining the road map for use of technology in the democratic process within your own community.

There are efficiency gains to be had for councils in using eDemocracy and it is typically much cheaper to do things online.

Good councils are now expected to use eDemocracy tools, for example, to inform their citizens of forthcoming consultations by email or SMS and provide a mechanism for responding to surveys and consultations online.

Citizen and community empowerment will figure strongly in the new corporate assessment framework, Comprehensive Area Assessment, and audit and inspection will start to make greater use of citizen experience and perspective. eDemocracy will play a part therefore in determining how well councils perform.