Richard,
As a former BBC education correspondent I agree that you are dead right
about just how constrained civil servants are during the election period.
Becta officers had every reason for concern - their jobs would have been at
risk if anything was said that could be construed as politically biased.
But now they can really say what they think, of course!
Regards,
David Meredith
Business Development Director
Teknical, a member of Serco Learning
www.teknical.com
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Teknical
Hesslewood Country Office Park
Hessle
East Yorkshire
HU13 0PF
-----Original Message-----
From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Richard Everett
Sent: 06 May 2005 13:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VLES] Welcome Back
As someone who used to work in politics I not only understand why the list
was closed but also why it was prudent to do so from BECTAs point of view.
In an ideal world utterances from government departments/quangoes etc would
be totally without an bias whatsoever but even in that case political
parties will attempt to use such to their own ends. I was an agent that was
my job! - to misrepresent everything towards my parties stance ;-) In those
sort of circumstances and particularly during the 'heat' of a general
election even if there is the slightest chance that an utterance is steering
voters to vote in one way or another you can bet that the ones (perceived)
not to be on the 'good' end of that will squeal. Those sort of issues can
lead to court cases to overturn results (like we may see after this election
as a result of the postal votes 'problem' anyway) and being an organisation
at the wrong end of that can be very uncomfortable indeed. If one has any
doubt about this then think about the issues around the BBC utterances last
year and the ramifications that has had for them - and we were not even in
an election at the time.
Hope that makes some sense.
Regards
Richard
==================================================
Richard Everett
Head of ICLT (Information Communications and Learning Technology)
Oaklands College
St Albans Smallford Campus
Hatfield Road
St Albans
Hertfordshire
AL4 0JA
Tel 01727 737 794
Fax 01727 847 987
==================================================
-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Winship [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 06 May 2005 13:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VLES] Welcome Back
Amber wrote:
> upon the parliamentary recess that all public discussion or
> announcements relating to government policy should be ended
> until the election.
Heaven forbid that anyone should dare to question government policies!
> We did not want to have to close
> the lists, but on seeking advice it seemed our only choice
> was to close it or to moderate every single message.
I still don't get the logic here. No other JISCmail list owners felt the
need to prevent discussion of government policy, so why should this be
different just because it has co-owners from a government agency. The Becta
folk didn't have to say anything.
(I wonder if all government employees were forbidden from contributing to
discussion lists during the election period)
I trust there will be rationalisation with the VLE-interest list that was
created to fill the gap.
--------------------------------------------
Ian Winship, Electronic Services Manager
Library & Learning Services
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK
email: [log in to unmask]
tel: 0191 227 4150 fax: 0191 227 4563
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