E-Voice aims to increase public influence and participation in political decision-making by improving the communication and interaction between citizens and politicians as well as public officials. The participating public authorities will also make available important information for citizens in a more user-friendly and accessible way.

The main purpose of the project is to increase and enhance the political interest and engagement of European citizens in general political issues in all phases of the policy cycle. A good functioning administrative system, opened via digital gates, will also contribute to the democratic well-being of the citizen, the common good and the public interest. The multi-media approach which E-VOICE intends to develop combines the strengths of the 'new' and the 'old' media. 'Politics is fun again, and not only for politicians!'

Expected Outcomes

In general, the online provision of public services will improve. The E-VOICE project will increase the quantity and quality of citizens? political participation in different local projects over a longer period of time. It will provide a tool library, a user manual and a handbook to provide knowledge about the appropriate media mix for improved attention to citizens? voices. All in all, 68,000 inhabitants are projected to communicate with their local government as a result of the project.

Activities

The E-VOICE project comprises seven specific Work Packages plus three for Publicity, Monitoring and Project Management. Firstly, in two general Work Packages, a multi-media dialogue will be set up for interactive citizen participation and an online Multimedia Tool Library will be created. The latter will be used by all partners and possibly partners from other projects as well. Then, five Pilot Clusters will cover the following issues: - How to organise access to public-sector information, which concentrates on data management; - Empowering citizens, civil servants, politicians and administrators, which focuses on instruction; - Engaging Neighbours, covering the involvement of citizens in spatial development processes; - Council Dialogue, which intends to broaden the contacts between citizens and politicians; - Client-Centred Service, focusing on online delivery of public services. All Pilot Clusters contain multiple pilot projects in different participating regions. The results of these will be dispersed using a website, a newsletter and presentations at a number of relevant congresses.

Reported Outcomes

The E-VOICE project are running pilot schemes in six different countries to investigate a range of innovative approaches to E-VOICE?s central goal - raising participation in politics using a combination of traditional and modern communication techniques. Activities include community websites supporting local services, planning and clubs, and 'local democracy days' all of which will help build more cohesive communities. The use of new communication technology has been demonstrated by the project activities of e-voice (The Voice of the Citizen in the Multimedia Information Society). The first e-voice multi media participation process in Bremen (G) supported the renovation of a public swimming pool. This was discussed in a campaign including a media mix of physical meetings for the general public, but also specific events for senior citizens, pupils and disabled persons. In co-operation with the largest newspaper for Bremen, a ?discussion table? was set up with an internet platform consisting of a newsletter, a discussion forum and a questionnaire. The responsible authority adopted the results of the participation campaign in December 2004. Bremen has implemented the community website BORIS (Bremen Online Redaktion in Stadtteilen) in the suburb of Osterholz. The idea behind this type of community websites is that citizens form a voluntary editing team and present information and publish articles about what is happening in their neighbourhood and where political participation activities take place. A new strategic plan for the region Zuid-West Vlaanderen is currently being developed. As part of the vision building process, a youth consultation initiative was set up, called Phare West. The purpose of the Phare West initiative is include NGOs and volunteers in the democratic process. Norfolk has developed a joint customer access and marketing strategy linked to the mynorfolk Digital Challenge bid. This should be complete in autumn 2007. The existing joint work in the county has been praised by the Audit Commission after a detailed inspection of eGovernment work by district and county councils. More than 50 parish councils in Norfolk have now had training and created websites using the ParishCouncilInvolve System. These have created professional standard websites which are being actively used in the local areas to inform parishioners of what the parish council is doing and how they can get involved in decisions on planning applications. In Uddevalla, a municipality in West Sweden with a population of about 50,000, council meetings were broadcasted by local TV and broadband with more than 9,000 people watching. The new electronic document management system, LEX, was the first one in Sweden, available on the net: An automated document management system for public administration is providing citizens and politicians with information, and it is also supporting e-Services and political decision-making. In Groningen, the Netherlands, a new award-winning web portal was opened, which gives access to a wide range of city departments and more than 200 of their products, ranging from building permits to a simple change of address. Based on Dutch and UK experience, Leiedal in Flanders organised a discussion on local product catalogues. They now work collaboratively with other organisation in the whole of Flanders. Instead of being developed for 12 municipalities in the Kortrijk region, as originally foreseen, a generic catalogue will now be developed for more than 300 municipalities in the Flemish region. The project intends to use the North Sea Commission?s thematic groups reference forums, including Culture and Tourism, Economic Development, and Education and Research. The success of the E-Voice campaigns can be seen in the attraction of national interest. In Belgium, project partners cooperate with the Flemish government to produce a multi-governmental ?product catalogue? and in Sweden collaboration with the Ministry of Justice (Division for Democracy Issues) has been established. The voter campaign of Norwich won a silver award in the PRide Awards 2005/2006, for an integrated public relations campaign, from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) in the UK. The Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs invited the Municipality of Dantumadeel to participate in the CLEAR programme organised by the Council of Europe in 2006. A local seminar on how E-VOICE can contribute to the development of democracy has already been organised in Uddevalla, with lectures from the Swedish Ministry of Justice. An international Political Forum on eDemocracy was held in January 2007 in Bremen, Germany. High level representatives from the European Community were invited to present their ideas on e-democracy and discuss them with colleagues from local, regional, national and international bodies.