19 February 2007
Tony Blair had a chance to look at some of the findings so far of his government’s policy review process during a seminar at Number 10.
Ministers gathered in the Pillared Room to analyse the progress of the review as it heads towards its end.
Tony Blair began the review last year. The public engagement strand includes "citizen forums" which are feeding into a national event to be held in early March.
The results will be considered by Cabinet late next month.
At today’s event Hazel Blears [pictured with the PM, Ed Miliband and Pat McFadden] and Hilary Armstrong gave a presentation on "empowerment and information".
They reflected on how turnout at elections and party membership was falling, despite people still being interested in political issues.
Citizens are now increasingly making their views heard using modern technology - on blogs, social networking sites like MySpace, or on Downing Street’s own e-petition site.
Both ministers said it was important to ensure that these views were heard, and that proper mechanisms were in place to respond to people’s concerns.
It was also vital, they said, that the 2.7 million families without internet access - the "digitally-excluded" - were kept engaged.
The other topics during the seminar were: quality of life, inequality and poverty, culture and behaviour change and a self-confident Britain.
We are running a series of webchats with senior Cabinet members over the next few weeks to discuss the main strands of the policy review.
The next two are with Margaret Beckett and Jack Straw.
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