Tree of Knowledge

I wake this sunny London morning to the sad news that Andrew Leigh is trading in blogging for bureaucracy and spending 6 months at Treasury guiding social policy.

Josh Gans’ thoughts are closest to my own:

But Andrew’s blog was the reason I got into this business and I get so much from reading both it and his AFR columns that were, by far, the best in the country. Many will miss that.

Andrew’s blog has been invaluable in a number of ways, but from my perspective he’s made an enormous contribution to the internal Labor policy debate on shibboleths like teacher performance pay by continually making rational, evidence based and accessible arguments available for public consumption – especially amongst the younger members of the party.

Here’s Peter Martin, here’s Jacques Chester’s take.

Perhaps I’m just irrationally raging against the injustice of no longer being able to take in Andrew’s musings in my googlereader any more, but the following line from Andrew’s farewell post did get me thinking:

Not surprisingly, the job requires that I cease media commentary, stop writing my column for the AFR, and close down this blog.

While it may well have been unsurprising given the inertia and resistance to change of the Australian public service, but it needn’t have been inevitable that Andrew be required to shut down his blog during his period of public service.

Consider the UK Civil Service’s new Principles for Participation Online:

The Civil Service Code applies to your participation online as a civil servant or when discussing government business. You should participate in the same way as you would with other media or public forums such as speaking at conferences.

….

you should not disclose information, make commitments or engage in activities on behalf of Government unless you are authorised to do so. This authority may already be delegated or may be explicitly granted depending on your organisation.

….

Also be aware that this may attract media interest in you as an individual, so proceed with care whether you are participating in an official or a personal capacity. If you have any doubts, take advice from your line manager

The guidelines go on to provide five clear and simple rules for public servant’s participation online. All of which is to say that Andrew shouldn’t have to face a blanket ban on blogging and that there is precedent from the mother country for this.

If Treasury wanted to be really enlightened, it could acknowledge the new information ecosystem we are now all living in and recognise Andrew’s blogging as a major asset for the Department. Andrew’s blog is one of the top 100 economics blogs in the world and certainly has relatively large and certainly elite readership in Australia.

While Andrew would obviously be unable to be as free-wheeling online as he was while he was independent (and would probably have to give up his ongoing war with the teachers unions ), surely his blogging could have value to the department in helping get its message out on whatever Andrew was working on?

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