New Local Democracy Act drives need for eGovernment Solutions
Enhanced citizen engagement and active compliance with the key legislative requirements of the forthcoming Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act, 2009, is now possible with a new software solution from Limehouse Software.
The fit-for-purpose and cost-effective Limehouse ePetitions solution for local government has been launched and is based on Limehouse’s successful consultation platform for local authorities.
Nick Kingsbury, Limehouse, stated: “The Act seeks to create greater opportunities for community and individual involvement in local decision-making. Critical to this will be the statutory requirement for local authorities to grant new rights to citizens to be better informed and exert more influence over local decisions. This is more important than ever now as hard pressed councils faced with reducing budgets need to strengthen the democratic mandate with their citizens.”
“One of the key enablers to achieving this, and a key requirement under the Act, is the duty for local authorities to provide a facility to the general public for submitting petitions in electronic form,” he continued.
Limehouse ePetitions is a hosted solution, requiring no technical resource from a local authority and is fully compliant with the provisions of the Act.
The general public can access the fully branded ePetitions solution via the council’s website. It is easy-to-use with all the relevant information about the petition, with supporting documentation and photography, clearly presented.
The public can then decide whether to sign or not by following one or two easy-to-follow steps. The Limehouse ePetitions solution only allows a person to sign once, enforced by the signing process requiring a valid email address. Additional security can be provided by ‘captcha’ facilities to prevent fraudulent attempts to fake signatures.
Nick continued: “We are seeing a shift toward empowering citizens and ensuring they have the opportunity to influence local policy and community issues. Local authorities will have to provide interested members of the public the opportunity to debate, collaborate on and influence local decisions that affect them. The Limehouse ePetitions solution does just that.”
The Limehouse ePetitions solution comprises of:
- A fully hosted and supported solution from Limehouse with no council ICT resources required
- A fully compliant with the Local Democracy Act
- A branded interface with a council’s logo and colours
- A feature rich, proven market solution
- A fast and easy to set-up solution operational within five days
- And optional integration with other consultation and public engagement tools
