HM Inspectorate of the Constabulary has stolen the name of a social enterprise, MyPolice, for its new online site. They should find a new name.
Our guest writer is Guy Lodge, Associate Director at the ippr.
What happens when a giant state bureaucracy decides to trample all over one of the innovative social enterprises in Britain? So far, nothing much.To explain: two conferences happened in London today. At the first David Cameron (and pretty much half the shadow cabinet) stood up to talk up their vague concept of a “Big Society“. There remain real problems with Tory thinking in this area, not least the assertion that an active state and a big society are locked in some kind of zero-sum relationship. But since his much derided conference speech last year when he claimed that rising inequality was primarily a consequence of big government, Cameron has at least tried to think more creatively about the role of the state.
Back in November he gave the Hugo Young Memorial lecture when he said that government should concentrate on:
“Galvanising, catalysing, prompting, encouraging and agitating for community engagement and social renewal. It must help families, individuals, charities and communities come together to solve problems.”
The idea that it would be good for the state to help husband and grow small, innovative social enterprises (or at least do them no harm) is something which should unite progressives and conservatives alike.
Sadly, then, there was perhaps a more significant event also happening today, about a 15 minute walk across London, run by the National Police Improvement Agency. There two young social entrepreneurs—Lauren Currie and Sarah Drummond, from the innovative police accountability organisation MyPolice.org—told the reality of how such organisations get treated.
MyPolice is an online feedback tool that enables the public and the police to have a conversation, and help people in local communities identify weaknesses in their policy service, and work with local forces to fix them. Most interestingly, all this data is then fed back to the police to help them improve. In short — a really good idea, and one supported by a range of groups, from Geoff Mulgan’s Young Foundation to Tom Steinberg’s MySociety.org.
The two founders were dismayed to find out recently that HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) — the police OFSTED — had decided to launch a vaguely similar site, with exactly the same name. The news wasn’t just irksome, but threatened their very survival: their organisation needs a good google ranking to allow the public to find them, and they had spent a year building relationships under their brand. Both of these won’t happen if a giant bureaucracy gobbles up the name, and creates confusion over who the real MyPolice might be.
That HMIC is investing in public online accountability mechanisms is a great thing — and to be encouraged, even applauded. But it would obviously be better to do this without friendly casualties in the process. And HMIC’s regrettable decision has already got some coverage, with more expected soon.
Rumours suggest that the Conservatives in particular are annoyed about this, given MyPolice are exactly the sort of organisation Cameron wants to flourish. But Labour supporters should be equally put out. We saw something like this happen when the government health website NHS Choices stomped over innovative startups, like PatientOpinion. And now its just happening all over again.
Thankfully, the solution is simple. HMIC should just admit they made a mistake, and change the name of their site. If they don’t, the first, smaller, better MyPolice will get swamped, and it is even possible that one of the most innovative small organisations in Britain could be snuffed out. If HMIC do change their name, everyone wins. And luckily, there are plenty of other good choices out there: OurPolice, YourPolice, BetterPolice, or indeed any one of literally dozens of other choices. Lets hope HMIC see sense, before their reputation suffers.
47 Responses to “MyPolice impersonation”
MyPolice.Org Impersonated by Police Inspectorate - Guy Fawkes' blog
[…] the top of Google’s search page displacing the impersonator. It would of course, as everyone left and right agrees, be a lot easier if the impersonators changed their […]
Jon Harvey
http://www.hmic.gov.uk/Pages/home.aspx
HMIC have responded! “HMIC will stop using the ‘my police’ name.”
A result! I suspect the profiling of this issue on here and elsewhere helped!
blogs of the world
HM Inspectorate of the Constabulary has stolen the name of a social enterprise, MyPolice, … http://reduce.li/l16qu4 #left
Mr. Sensible
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8599701.stm
Paul Hodgkin
Jonathon Carr Brown is right – it is very possible for independent social enterprises like Patient Opinion to have productive and supportive relationships with big state-mandated sites like NHS Choices. And as a subcontractor to NHS Choices (we now provide the feedback service for mental health trusts in England for them) we have found the relationships positive and mutually respectful – Much of which is down to Jonathon’s understanding of what our two organisations have to offer.
That said the potential for ‘stomping’ is still there just by the nature of the size and reach of the two organisations: NHS Choices has a budget of £20 million (which obviously covers much more than feedback) and even its reported spend on Google Ads (£2.5 million last year) is several times greater than Patient Opinion’s entire turnover. So living with NHS Choices is from our point of view still a bit like living with an elephant – albeit a thoughtful and well-intentioned one.
But the more interesting question is what the best model for this kind of web-based feedback realy is? Perhaps Patient Opinion and MyPolice are actually pretty irrelevant – and deserve to be – once the state gets going on this stuff. Perhaps we’re always destined to be the gadflies and mosquitoes buzzing around the elephant.
Of course at Patient Opinion we think that the multiple, myriad points and pricks of democratised voice are much more akin to the buzz of mosquitoes than the tramp of elephants. And so we’re pretty passionate about our small, independent, nimble platform as this seems more attuned to the buzz of comments from the 1 million people clocking though the NHS every day and orchestrating them into thousands of service improvements. But perhaps we’re wrong – after all passion does not necessarily lead to clear thinking.
It might help to review the possible models for web-based feedback (state, for-profit commercial, charity and social enterprise) and then match them up to the key criteria that we know any web-based feedback platform needs:
– users want confidentiality for their comments and safeguards against censorship
– together with lots of good responses and improvements from providers so they know their voice is having a real effect
– which in turn means that busy staff want to interact with patients on the system.
– Finally the whole thing needs a sustainable business model that creates enough independence from funders to do all of these things.
On this analysis a state run service is likely to be seen (rightly or wrongly) as weak on confidentiality and prone to censor. By contrast a commercial site run on advertising (think medical negligence) is likely to encourage negative postings about poor care. Staff will hate such sites (see RateMyTeacher) and in turn are likely to ignore suggestions made on them. Or if they are run by companies with existing interests in health care (think perhaps Virgin Health or Pfizer) will be subject to sharp conflicts of interest. Charities will clearly be on the side of citizens but seem to be poor at creating viable e-businesses and tend to depend on big grants – which can always be withdrawn.
Unsurprisingly perhaps I’ve ended up arguing for something like Patient Opinion – a social enterprise that is passionate about using web-based feedback to improve health service at scale but sufficiently business like to generate a surplus from its many small sources of income. Of course we could still be wrong – no one, and certainly not Patient Opinion, has all the answers in this new game of cheap voice and transparency.
At the moment we have survived long enough to become a bit like Apple to NHS Choices’ Microsoft. And maybe that’s how it will stay. I certainly don’t think that we, (or for that matter MyPolice), deserve a free ride simply because we are ‘not for profit’ or ‘not the state’. The new tools of web-based feedback and democratised voice are too important for that. But, since none of us know yet what the best model is going to be, what IS important is that those state-funded elephants watch out for the mice running round their feet – especially in the very early days when they are really small. After all, when the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid (or was it a recession?) it was the mice that inherited the earth.
All that said the potential for stomping is still there just by the nature of the size and reach of the two organisations. After all NHS Choices has a budget of £20 million and even though this covers much moor than feedback, its reported spend on Google Ads (£2.5 million last year) is alone several times greater than Patient Opinion’s turnover. So living with NHS Choices is from our point of view still a bit like living with an elephant – albeit a thoughtful and well-intentioned one.
But this raises a wider and more interesting point touched on in …. Excellent blog: what really is the best model for this kind of web-based feedback? Perhaps Patient Opinion and MyPolice are actually pretty irrelevant – and deserve to be – once the state gets going on this stuff. After all why bother with mosquitoes when you can have the elephant?
Of course I believe passionately that the multiple, myriad points and pricks of democratised voice are much more like the buzz of mosquitoes than the tramp of elephants. But perhaps I’m wrong – after all passion does not necessarily lead to clear thinking.
So let’s review the possible models for web-based feedback: state, for-profit commercial, charity and social enterprise. And match them up to the key criteria that we know any web-based feedback platform needs:
– confidentiality for users; independence from censorship
– plus lots of good responses and improvements from providers that show that citizen voice is having a real effect
– which in turn means that busy staff want to interact with patients on the system
– and finally a sustainable business model that creates enough independence from funders to do all of these things.
On this analysis a state run service is likely to be seen (rightly or wrongly) as weak on confidentiality and censoring. By contrast a commercial site run on advertising (think medical negligence and liposuction) is likely to encourage negative postings about poor care. Staff will hate such sites (see RateMyTeacher) and in turn are likely to ignore suggestions made on them. Or if they are run by organisations with existing interests in health care (think Virgin Health or Pfizer) commercial companies will be subject to sharp conflicts of interest. Charities will clearly be on the side of citizens but seem to be poor at creating viable e-businesses and tend to depend on big grants – which can always be withdrawn.
Unsurprisingly perhaps I’ve ended up arguing for something like Patient Opinion – a social enterprise that is passionate about using web-based feedback to improve health service at scale but sufficiently business like to generate a surplus from many source of income. Of course we could still be wrong – no one, and certainly not Patient Opinion, has all the answers in this new game of cheap voice and transparency.
At the moment we have survived long enough to become a bit like Apple to NHS Choices’ Microsoft. And maybe that’s how it will stay. I certainly don’t think that we, or MyPolice for that matter, deserve a free ride simply because we are ‘not the state’, or ‘not for profit’. The new tools of web-based feedback and democratised voice are too important for that. But, since none of us know yet what the best model is going to be, what IS important is that those elephants watch out for the mice running round their feet – especially in the very early days when they are really small. After all, when the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid (or was it a recession?) it was the mice that inherited the earth.