The International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE; http://www.icele.org/site/index.php ) is to launch a free 'Blog in a box' product aimed at councillors with little experience of using the web to communicate with their electorate, delegates at July's 'Building the perfect council website' conference heard.

The product, released in the next few months, aims to address low take-up of online communication tools such as blogs, online newsletters and online surgeries by councillors, according to panellists at a session titled: 'Councillor websites: a political hot potato?' Delegates heard that some 95 per cent of councillors do not use the web to communicate with the public at all, according to Local Government Association estimates.

"It's for councillors who feel they need more hand-holding," said ICELE ( http://www.icele.org/) board member Councillor Mary Reid, who receives up to 9,000 monthly visits to her own blog. Councillors have several online channels at their disposal: personal blogs they maintain themselves; dedicated web pages on their council's website; and websites provided by a council, but maintained by the councillor, she said.

A show of hands from the 250-strong audience, drawn mainly from local government, suggested that few councils offering dedicated web pages for elected members have actually seen councillors take them up.

• Their eTools section is well worth a visit at http://www.icele.org/site/scripts/documents.php?categoryID=4
  

"With an ever growing number of online tools available to help you engage with your local residents, how do you know what tool to choose? How do you know what's right for your council and your residents? How do you know if the tools you're interested in will actually work and deliver the results you need?"

"We've designed this section to help you learn more about what's available through easy-to-understand guides, research and analysis, and hints and tips we've picked up by trying many of the tools ourselves."

This could be reworded for learning providers... 

"With an ever growing number of online tools available to help you engage with your learners, how do you know what tool to choose? How do you know what's right for your organisation and your learners? How do you know if the tools you're interested in will actually work and deliver the results you need?"