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| News Canon proposes reforms The newly-elected Scottish Parliament needs to build up an internet-based People's Chamber to sound out detailed public opinion on its proposals, according to one of the architects of devolution in the 1990s. Canon Kenyon Wright, one of the leaders of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, is also arguing that expert panels should be appointed on every major devolved policy area, with their members providing advice to MSPs and taking a longer view than the next election. He is to set out the ideas in a speech today, after the close outcome of the election began to force a change in the way Holyrood operates. Canon Wright has been at the forefront of a campaign to create a constitutional commission to consider ways in which Holyrood can develop, including new powers it could take on from Westminster. That could have some support from the SNP, which is expected to move into a minority administration next Wednesday. He will tell a meeting of the Institute for Contemporary Scotland that minority government should not be seen as second best, but "as a dynamic, positive and welcome step to the new politics". 12:45am Saturday 12th May 2007  Print  Email this  Comment
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Navraj Singh Ghaleigh on 12:42pm Sun 13 May 07
Here at Edinburgh University we ran a very successful online forum called Holyrood2007 (www.holyrood2007.net ). This was an avowedly apolitical platform that gave very full information about all candidates, for all parties, as well as having a full news service (local and national), daily polls, candidate videos, a vote navigator and also some vital tools that informed citizens about the electoral process, including the ballot paper!
Our motivation was not advancing the goals of any one party but rather fundamental research about the Scottish electoral process, and how parties, candidates and citizens use new technologies. If an online forum for Scotland is deployed, the apolitical status is non-negotiable. Equally important is a design that is both easy to use but also sufficiently sophisticated so as to produce outputs that can guide policy development.  | 
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