Tories plan Obama-style crowdsourcing Cloud application to shape policy

The Conservative Party has come under fire for offering a one million pound cash prize for developers to create a Cloud Computing website to crowdsource ideas from the general public, despite the idea apparently working in the US for the incoming Obama administration.

The cash prize would be awarded to the people who develop the best online platform which can harness 'the collective wisdom of the British people' to shape and test policies. The cash will be taken from the Cabinet Office budget.

Possible  policy ideas include rating the quality of schools and hospitals; identifying and rooting out wasteful government spending and making government information clear and simple.

"Conservatives believe that the collective wisdom of the British people is much greater than that of a bunch of politicians or so-called experts,” said Conservative Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.  “And new technology now allows us to harness that wisdom like never before. Too often policy has been ill thought through with disastrous consequences. When formulating and implementing policy why should we not listen to the hundreds of thousands of experts out there?"

"Look at the U-turns over child care vouchers, over the 10p tax, over the NHS IT system,”  he added. “It is crazy that these things have gone wrong when you've got lots and lots of, for example, retired health professionals, retired policemen, people in the teaching profession, who have huge knowledge and expertise...

"Is there a way that we can use the internet ... to try and avoid some of these howlers so a future Conservative government can not just have good policy ideas but execute policy in a much more considered and thought-through way?...We think £1m is about the right amount if we are going to get some serious IT development done and if we do that we think it could be a lot better value for the taxpayer than the £12 billion spent on the NHS IT system."

But Labour and the Liberal Democrats were scornful of the idea which they dismissed as a "gimmick" and a publicity stunt. "Families want serious, thought-through policies that meet their aspirations, not short-term public relations stunts,” said Tessa Jowell, the Cabinet Office Minister. “Labour already makes full use of collaboration and social networking technologies to consult with people.”

"This prize is a total waste of taxpayers' money,” said Jenny Willott for the Liberal Democrats. "Maybe the Tories are so out of touch they don't know what's out there, but they shouldn't waste £1 million of public money reinventing the wheel. There are already a multitude of ways to communicate with large numbers of people online, from Facebook to discussion groups.”

In fact the Tory proposal mirrors the actions of the incoming Obama administration in the US last year when it used Salesforce.com's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to enable citizen participation, where people can make their voices heard to the new president on the Change.gov website.

Valerie Jarret, co-chair of the Obama-Biden Transition Team, explained: "It can be about energy, healthcare, or reduction of our dependence on foreign oil. You decide what is important to you. Other citizens will then be able to read your ideas and make comments and suggestions. You may even hear from the transition team.”