The People’s Parliament fully supports the
This is a very important initiative started by Sean Ang that is due to be launched very soon. For more information, please visit the Citizen Think Tank.
The Citizen Think Tank is intended to serve as a database of our parliamentary and state representatives. It has the potential to go a long way towards empowering the citizenry with the necessary information to make a ‘knowledge-based’ vote at election time.
This initiative needs volunteers to give some of their time to assist in building up and updating the database. This is an opportunity for the many who have written in with positive comments about the efforts through this blog to make their contribution to the improved management of our country.
The Citizen Think Tank presently needs at least 100 volunteers to serve as editors. Please visit the site and if you are willing to give some time to this effort, please contact Sean directly at seanang@citizenthinktank.com
The People's Parliament 
Red
June 20, 2007
The CTT project, without admitting to it, is essentially a scorecard about an MP’s performance. This Scorecard should be relocated into the centrepiece of the project.
The CTT project is illuminating in principle but this is likely to be undermined by (a) methodology and (b) its mechanism.
Without changing the existing framework, here is the remedy (an idea stolen from public finance, known as Sovereign Risk Assessment):
1. Methodology
1.1 Subject the information on the MP, not the MP’s track record, to scrutiny. This is because information is scarce or, if available, difficult to assess or to verify for most MPs. This also removes party influence on personal positions/stance on a number of specified issues.
1.2 Subjecting information to scrutiny offers potential constituency candidates, and not simply existing MPs, a possible ranking. This is to say, it offers a way for citizens to evaluate potential MPs, which is the most critical piece of information. It gives the CTT project a genuine sense of mission and, above all, credibility to its mission.
2. Mechanism
2.1 The new mechanism should rely on a handful of persons (three at most), not hundreds, to execute. This is possible without bias once the criteria is established and agreed upon. The existing mechanism takes too many to execute, hence cumbersome, inefficient and, above all, subject to multiple influences and points-of-view rather than a single set of objective criteria.
2.2 The new mechanism must be made variable over time. This is because society, policies, ideas, people change over time. Tracking information over time puts the CTT project as a permanent feature in the political landscape, and not when an election is round the corner.
See new Methodology here: The Scorecard
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p7yszktP32oKMYQnwEZ-aSA
Once The Scorecard is placed into the centre, then the entire CTT website could be constructed, with news, opinions, essays, constructed around it. Notice The Scorecard is only a skeletal framework. It needs refinement and details, excepting final score, need not be published to protect its integrity.
seanang
June 20, 2007
Thanks Red for your comments.
The CTT project is a quick and dirty framework to assess the MPs and ADUNs, based on the success of Web 2.0, whereby content comes from the public. At this moment we do not have the resources to implement anything more rigour or comprehensive as all of us are volunteers.
I agree with you on 3 points:
Point 1:
“2.1 The new mechanism should rely on a handful of persons (three at most), not hundreds, to execute. This is possible without bias once the criteria is established and agreed upon.”
Currently – we have 2 groups Editors and Users. I think in Phase 2, if we could raise enough funds for the hiring of 3 Fulltime Raters, at least we could eliminate high intra-observer variations.
Point 2:
“1.2 Subjecting information to scrutiny offers potential constituency candidates, and not simply existing MPs, a possible ranking. This is to say, it offers a way for citizens to evaluate potential MPs, which is the most critical piece of information.”
Am thinking on how this could be done, as it will be last minute announcement on candidatures, I was wondering if we could mobilize the resources on time.
Point 3:
“2.2 The new mechanism must be made variable over time. This is because society, policies, ideas, people change over time. Tracking information over time puts the CTT project as a permanent feature in the political landscape, and not when an election is round the corner.”
Very likely, interest in the Politician Wathdog will decline after the general election period. Thus, we will focus more on the Citizen Voice component. But the Politician Watchdog will be a good reminder that the Citizens are watching the representatives 24/7.