Getting on with Government 2.0 - Department of Finance and ...

4.4 Connecting people, problems and solutions
Online engagement vastly increases the range, type and mix of expertise on which complex and
challenging decision processes can draw. This is particularly useful where issues are complex,
contentious or involve conflicting values and assumptions. Government 2.0 allows access to
more open, diverse knowledge base from which to draw to improve the chances of seizing an
opportunity or solving a problem.
In this regard the taskforce endorses the views of the Government’s Advisory Group on the
Public Service Reform (the Moran Review) quoted at the head of this chapter. Emerging practice
is moving beyond ‘consultation’ towards true policy collaboration between those within and
those outside government agencies. This implies a shift in thinking and practice at both a
cultural and managerial level in the public service. The promise of Government 2.0, at least in
part, is to spread the search for both formal and experiential, or informal, expertise. Having
located this expertise, it is important to find ways more effectively to integrate that knowledge
into the deliberation and decision making process.
The collaboration of those outside government brings a potential difference in the kind of
contribution they can make. While public servants bring types of knowledge and expertise to
bear, there will increasingly be a range of people outside government with their own expertise,
personal and professional insights to contribute. In many cases, this will derive from their
perspective as service users, or their local knowledge or some other expertise.
This phenomenon has been identified by Beth Simone Noveck in her work on ‘wiki
government’. 152 Technology now offers the opportunity for policy development and service
delivery to be simultaneously more democratic and more expert. We have the capability to
fashion much more open and connected approaches. Those approaches will recognise that in
some cases, those on whose expertise we want to draw may be found outside the particular
agency developing policy or delivering services. They will be found in other agencies which
interact with the delivery agency, in communities of users of services or general interest groups
in Australia or indeed elsewhere.
James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds begins by pointing out that on the game
show Who Wants to be a Millionaire, asking the crowd produces a right answer over 90 per
cent of the time whereas phoning a smart friend — the closest the contestant can come to
an expert — generates correct answers just 65 per cent of the time. 153 The point is not that all
those in the audience know more than the expert, but rather, that to answer some questions,
providing one has some plausible way to identify those with the specific expertise required,
more minds addressing the problem increases our chances of finding a solution. Citizens with
expertise, experience, local knowledge and professional insights can contribute their perspectives
as service users or interested participants.
Understanding the value of crowdsourcing does not discount specific expertise and the policy
experience of Australia’s public servants. It certainly isn’t a claim that any and every problem can
simply be crowdsourced to a successful solution. Many issues require specific expertise, but even
here, a well cultivated community of discussion can widen the circle of knowledge and expertise
on which government agencies ultimately make their own judgements.
152 Beth Simone Noveck (2009), Wiki Government: How technology can make government better, democracy
stronger, and citizens more powerful. Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC.
153 James Surowiecki (2004), The Wisdom of Crowds. Doubleday, NY.
Engage: <strong>Getting</strong> on with Government 2.0 | report of the government 2.0 taskforce
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