David Miliband MP Ministerial Blog

Title/URL

www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk

Screenshot

Department

The blog was started at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), now Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), in December 2005.

The blog has been transferred to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in May 2006.

Objective/Context

David Miliband was elected as MP for South Shields in June 2001. He has held the position of Schools Minister (2002 – 2004) and Minister for the Cabinet Office (2004 – 2005). His first Cabinet position was as Minister of Communities and Local Government (2005 – 2006) at the former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. He was appointed as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 5 May 2006.

Content in the blog reflects David Miliband’s ministerial responsibilities, interests, research, visits, as well as reactions to developments outwith the department. The blog format allows the Minister to personally publish on departmental and ministerial matters without the conventional intermediation that is associated with government communications. Blogging also allows readers to comment on the author’s posts, thus allowing for quick and direct dialogue between a government minister and the public.

Though the blog is authored by David Miliband in his capacity as a government minister, it was also set up to serve the department with a channel to communicate and interact with the public and the department’s stakeholders. Therefore, the blog has come to combine policy, positioning and consultation purposes.

Policy Overview

Various – reflecting departmental policies.

Whilst blogging at the ODPM, the blog posts were divided into the following categories:

• Housing;
• Inclusive communities;
• Local government;
• Public services for all;
• World class cities.

Once transferred to Defra, the following categories were created:

• Animal welfare;
• Climate change;
• Food and farming;
• Natural resources;
• Rural communities.

Application used

Weblog (third-party build, design and hosting).

The blog was public and anyone could post, though name, email and acknowledgement of the terms and conditions were required.

Purpose

Positioning and consultation tool.

Moderation

Reader comments were pre-moderated against the terms and conditions (published on the blog). Comment moderation was carried out by ministerial team.

Catchment

Policy impacts on UK. However, access and commenting was not restricted to the UK.

Timeline

The blog was publicly launched on 16 March 2006 and is still live and being maintained. The blog was run internally between December 2005 – March 2006 to allow a practice period for the Minister and the departmental web team.

The evaluation of the forum began on 6th January and was completed on 17th May 2006.

Blog statistics

These statistics were compiled over the months of March and April 2006 (source: compiled by DCLG):

• ranked at 33,276 out of 37.7 million listed blogs (source: Technorati.com);
• had attracted 86 inbound links;
• had been viewed 34,950 times (average 37 views per day; 852 per post);
• had 183 comments from visitors;
• averaged 5 blog posts per week;
• Ranked 1st on Google for ‘David Miliband blog’;
• Ranked 1st on Google for ‘government blog’.

Participant profiles

No demographic data was collected.

Anecdotally, a rich mix of visitors came to the blog – from inquiring members of the public and journalists, to expert practitioners and other elected representatives.

Publicity

The ODPM undertook a ‘soft launch’ in March, relying on word-of-mouth and interest among bloggers to generate traffic.

The department linked to the blog from their corporate site and satellite sites, such as the ‘local:vision’ forum (see ‘Case Study 4’).

The majority of participants recall finding out about the forum via email, a link online or via a search engine.

There was no ‘paid for’ marketing.

Distinct features

Strengths

• First MP to blog in ministerial capacity;
• Posts written by Minister himself;
• Regularity of posting;
• Succinct posts;
• Topicality of post subject matter;
• Comprehensive set of basic blog features in application and actively used on site;
• Longevity of blog;
• Relaxed comment moderation;
• Active referencing and visible linking between the departmental web-based (blogs, corporate sites, forum, webchats) and offline channels making good use of audiences and participant bases.

Potential for improvement

• Cost of blog platform;
• Rarity of blog author’s responses to visitor comments;
• Participants pursuit of off-topic agendas for which other, better-suited forums exist;
• Lack of links with other blogs;
• No ‘TrackBack’ function used.

David Miliband’s blog was a genuine attempt to launch and sustain a blog authored by a government minister. It was the first of its kind and has to date performed well. It has the necessary technical features of a blog; its content was authored by the Minister himself, updated regularly, and members of the public were encouraged to comment on the Minister’s posts.

However, the blog has had a rocky reception. Some of the criticism is confusing. As blogging began to emerge as a communications tool in British politics in 2003, many of its early promoters urged politicians to blog in order to bring themselves more directly and frequently into contact with the public. Yet Miliband has been reproached for his attempt. As blogging has become more entrenched as a tool for citizens to get a foothold in political debate, it seems that the tide of calls for senior political figures to blog has turned. That a major member of the Cabinet began to blog was perhaps too much of an affront to those who prize the anti-establishment connotations of blogging.

The Minister’s blog has also been criticised for being too ‘on-message’, suggesting that he should divulge more about himself and his department. For some, Miliband should perhaps be using his blog as a ‘confessional’ to expose big government and his fellow members of Cabinet. Of course, this was never the intention. The blog is revealing and provides an insight about a minister and his department that might not otherwise have been available in the mainstream media. Without it there would not have been a public space where members of the public could gather to criticise, debate and support the Minister’s ideas, opinions and activities in such a frequent and open manner.

The cost of the blog technology generated a great deal of the negativity directed at it. At just over £6000, this was (comparatively) an expensive blog – given that there are a range of free and open source alternatives on the market that are popular and widely used. Compared to government’s wider spending on online communications, however, it is a small sum. The decision to spend this amount on a blog was driven by the departmental web team’s desire to ensure that the application they bought enabled maximum flexibility, manageability and security. Ultimately, the costs should be measured against usage and impact over a longer evaluation period (see ‘Next Steps’).

There are aspects of David Miliband’s blogging that have justified the criticism. The most important is that for reasons of inexperience and lack of time Miliband has not adequately established his blog’s presence online. There are very few links to other relevant blogs – either in the permanent ‘blog roll’ or in the posts. The Minister rarely interacts with the comments made in response to his posts, and does not visit other blogs to comment. Therefore, the Minister’s blog fails to exploit its potential as a node in the communicative network that blogging has created. It stands out because of its establishment associations and looks awkward next to its peers.

Redressing the inefficiencies presents the most pressing challenge to David Miliband and his fledgling blog. Success may bring a greater acceptance by bloggers and generate more general traffic amongst those who are not regular participants in the political process. However, this will require a team effort by the Minister and his departmental communications team, and it will be interesting to see how this will be viewed by evangelical bloggers and political opponents.

Participant feedback

The Hansard Society surveyed 110 people who visited and/or commented on David Miliband’s blog. The following are a selection of the core questions and their results:

Do you have a blog or a personal website?
Yes 60%
No 40%

How would you describe the frequency of your internet use?
Always on 66%
Occasional user 2%
Regular user 32%

Accessing from…
Home 68%
Work 30%
Library 1%
Other person’s house 1%

How often do you visit blogs for politically-orientated content?
Frequently 53%
Occasionally 27%
Rarely 19%
Never 1%

Did you learn anything about being a Minister from the blog?
Yes 55%
No 45%

Did you learn anything about policy from visiting the blog?
Yes 66%
No 34%

Compared to other politics blogs you visit, please rate David Miliband’s blog (5 is best rating, 1 is the worst rating)
1 10%
2 15%
3 32%
4 30%
5 13%

Would you visit the blogs of other Ministers and government representatives?
Yes 80%
No 20%

Is blogging a credible form of political participation?
Yes 87%
No 3%
Don’t know 10%

In the surveys there were a number of open-ended questions to allow respondents to articulate their views. Broadly, there were two camps who were favourably inclined toward the UK’s first ministerial blog – i) online political activists and bloggers, and ii) a group who were visiting the blog for its departmental and policy content and were not often involved in political discussion sites.

A smaller third camp was negative about blogging in general, and thought that this site should be taken offline. This third group centred its criticisms on the cost of the blog (around £6,200 for technology set up), claiming that blogging distracted the Minister from his duties, or that blogging encouraged flippant and rant-driven commenting which diluted the quality of political debate.

A sizable number of the survey respondents were themselves bloggers. Some thought that David Miliband had got the basics right – conceptually and technically. Others chided the blog for not having the latest functionality or plug-ins installed; many lamented the fact that the department had bought in blogging software rather than using a readily-available free or open-source package.

Some took exception to the content, feeling that it read too much like a press release. Others complained that there were too few personal insights, and in this sense they argued that the blog failed to credibly claim the title of a ‘blog’. There were calls on the one hand for more party political content, others were critical of what party politics there was.

Overall, despite complaints about specific content details, the cost of the software and the rarity of ministerial responses to visitor comments, feedback was positive. People welcomed the opportunity to scrutinise the Minister directly without the intermediation of the media. They liked being able to get an alternative view on what a government minister was doing and thinking on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, a significant number of respondents warned that their positive appraisals were subject to review. This first attempt by government to blog was welcomed – even seen as brave – but there was also wariness about how long it would last and many thought that despite the positive impact blogging could have on political information and debate, the government’s commitment was fleeting and in the long term would not properly engage with the medium.

Departmental feedback

David Miliband set up his blog when he was at the ODPM. He tasked the department’s eCommunications team with setting it up and helping him get started. The Minister and the team did not undertake the task lightly and spend a significant amount of time researching the medium, the use of blogging at both grassroots and corporate levels, and then put their learning into practice internally before going live.

In interviews before and after the blog went live, little changed in the overall aims of the blog. The Minister wanted a platform to express his ideas and thoughts, he wanted to experiment with a new tool for positioning departmental policy and he wanted to solicit public feedback.

What did change between the time of going live and the next evaluation interview a few months later was that the Minister and his team were more acutely aware of the realities of live, public blogging. They respected blogging more as a result – viewing it both as a more intensive undertaking than first envisaged and more fruitful in terms of public responses and input. From a technical perspective, the communications team attested to having improved their programming skills and was glad of the opportunity to trial a new type of web application.

Negative feedback had been expected, but the Minister and the team behind the blog were disappointed by the concentration on the cost of the blog software. They argued that it was not a waste of money and that the software also included the ability to run additional blogs and forums for the department, and included extra security measures required by the government’s hosting standards. In terms of content, there was also surprise at calls for more party political content and parallel criticisms that there was too much.

The learning at the ODPM benefited the Minister and Defra when David Miliband took up his new position as Secretary of State, moving the blog over with him. The speed of the handover was very quick and the Minister soon restarted blogging. With handover support from the team at the ODPM, the communications team at Defra reacted positively and welcomed the opportunity to rise to the challenge of supporting the Minister’s use of a tool that was unfamiliar to them.

Outcomes

David Miliband is still blogging and has expressed an intention to carry on in the long term.

The communications and web teams in both the DCLG (former ODPM) and Defra have expressed a greater confidence and enthusiasm for blogging in a government context and are considering ways to expand the practice.