Harrow councillors set for Internet revolution (From Harrow Times)

Harrow councillors to be trained to use Twitter and MySpace

7:10am Tuesday 2nd June 2009 in News By Tristan Kirk

COUNCILORS in Harrow will be shown how to create a MySpace page and use Twitter to talk directly to residents.

A report prepared by Harrow Council officers has suggested new ways for councillors to interact with residents, including running their own blogs and joining social networking websites.

A formal proposal will suggest training elected members on “the use of web resources”, including Twitter, Word Press and MySpace.

A council spokesman said Harrow wanted to offer more than other London boroughs by encouraging councillors to let residents know via the interent what they were doing.

Harrow would be following in the footsteps of Councillor Mike Freer, leader of Barnet Council, who has a Twitter feed of his own and runs a blog.

However when the hi-tech idea was first floated last year, officers were concerned about the content of blogs by individual councillors, and the potential damage they could do to the council.

But it has since been agreed councillors would take responsibility for the content of their own websites and they would not be overtly political.