The UKGovWeb Twitterverse
The real value of Twitter is in the network, and if you are just starting out with it, and don’t have many people to follow, or much of a following yourself, it can seem a bit quiet, depressing and pointless. As you build up your network, though, suddenly things change and it becomes a vital communication tool.
So, if you are a public sector worker wanting to make the most of this great network, you might need a bit of help tracking down some people to start following and interacting with. Here’s that help! I’ve tried to break the various groups up into categories, to help you find who you want.
If I have missed anyone out or put them in the wrong place, please let me know in the comments! There’s gotta be more tweeting politicians, surely?
Central Government Official Feeds
Civil Servants
- Jeremy Gould – Ministry of Justice
- Sebastian Crump – COI
- Andrew Lewin – COI
- Steph Gray – DIUS
- Neil Williams – CLG
- Russell Tanner – Commission for Rural Communities
- Jasmin Tarique – CLG
- James Barbour – Foreign Office (I think)
- Mark O’Neill – DCMS
- Ross Ferguson – COI
- Will Perrin – Cabinet Office
- Neil Franklin – DWP
Local Authority Official Feeds
- Barnet
- Hillingdon
- Southend
- St Helens
- Stratford
- Kirkless
- Devon
- Stirling
- Warwick
- Bracknell Forest
- Newcastle
Local Authority Web Teams
Local Authority Officers
- Simon Hume – Stratford
- Steve Tuck – Kirklees
- Steve Langrick – Kirklees
- Simon Wakeman – Medway
- Carl Haggerty – Devon
- Pete Morton – Devon
- Russell Taylor – Devon
- Sue Bicks – Devon
- Martin Howitt – Devon
- Emma Jarvis – Devon
- Paul Davidson – Sedgemoor
- Phillip Dade – Great Yarmouth
- Noel Hatch – Kent
- Tim Cooper – Derby
- Seb Monks – Westminster
- Alastair Smith – Newcastle
- Tom Gaskin – Norfolk
- Andrew Beeken – Lincoln
- Martin Black – ‘a certain London authority’
- Stuart Harrison – Lichfield
Other Public Sector Bodies & Officers
- Parliament
- NHS Choices
- NHS Choices Talk
- Equality and Human Rights Commission
- Robert Brook – Parliament
- Alistair Reid – Parliament
- Ingrid Koehler – IDeA
- Michael Norton – IDeA
- Tessa Darley – Improvement Service
- Pete Bowyer -Department of Health
- Tony Molloy – Citizen’s Advice Bureau
- David Dinsdale – Business Link
- Nick Drew – Commission for the Compact
- Kevin Campbell-Wright – JISC
- Gavin Wray – West Midlands Regional Observatory
- Steven Dovey – West Midlands Regional Observatory
- Audit Commission
- Tony Cox – Audit Commission
- Edward Welsh – Local Government Association
- Local Government Chronicle
Politicians
- See TweetMinster
Freelancers, Consultants etc
Hi, I’m also out there tweeting! I work for a Cabinet Office-funded quango called the Commission for the Compact, which promotes and develops the Compact agreement between government and the third sector… Fascinating I’m sure you’ll agree. I go by the unlikely moniker of “strix_aluco” BTW (look it up if your’e interested/confused).
Sorry Nick, how could I have forgotten you? Will add you in now.
Wandsworth Council also have a twitter feed but they haven’t said anything yet!
I won’t embarrass them by linking to it just yet then, Louise!
Thanks for the list, however, the forename has been mis-spelt!
Apologies, Phillip, have given you your L back!
Thanks Dave – a very useful list.
Nice work Dave. I wonder if this list could be added to the Govt 2.0 wiki in the hope that it might encourage other jurisdictions to add their lists…
This is really helpful Dave and will help me to extol the benefits of e-networking within my business unit. Thank you. Cheers S
Hi Dave, great stuff yet again….
There are some additional people within my authority who have started twittering, and more soon, so i will be back with more names.
They are:
Russell Taylor (eComms) @russ_t_uk
Martin Howitt (Enterprise Architect) @mhowitt
Emma Jarvis (ICT Programmes) @emjarvis
Hi Dave, back again
here are some more from Devon CC.
Sue Tylcoat (Solutions development manager) @suety
Pete Morton (enterprise architect) @podra
Sue Bicks (enterprise architect) @subix
The @NHSChoices account hasn’t found a voice yet, but we have one tweeting our latest blog posts @nhschoicestalk. Am attempting to add other updates to it too so its not just an RSS feed, which I know is incredibly dull to follow.
Oh dear. I am way behind on this one! Could you do a post on the sort of value you and all these other guys are getting from twitter? I am not sure why I or an average public sector guy might want to start using twitter? Can you give a few situations where it might be helpful to people – best I can think of is Egyptian dissidents keeping each other informed about whether they have been arrested and currently that is not an issue for me! I have a Twitter account and have done a few tweets, but could not really find an intersection with my work or personal life!
What about each of the political parties? They all have their own Twitter accounts.
How good is this? Thanks Dave. About 6 new follows for me on this list. Maybe what we need is an OPML file for feeds for all these twitter users and public sector bloggers, rolled into one.
Great list Dave.
I’m based in the Infrastructure Organisation network in the Third Sector (one of those CVS thingies that support smaller community organisations). I’m thinking of something similar on our side …. a list of Third Sector Inf Org Twitterers. The list is pretty short at the moment !
What I would really like to do is match up your list of LA Twitter feeds with the CVS’ I know that Tweet (or use Social Media) and see if there are examples in an authority area where they have worked together on Social Media projects, or just had better LSP relationships as a result.
The Twitter list is short, but the RSS feed and Blog list is pretty good and growing.
Results so far are shown in the map on http://watfordgap.wordpress.com/using-web-20/
ships
What I wo
Dave
Stumbled across this today, a very useful list.
@Paul Johnston You might find this list useful for communication related twitter tools and how you can get use out of it. http://www.briansolis.com/2008/10/twitter-tools-for-community-and.html
@Neil Williams Have you seen Group Tweet for sharing confidential messages between Twitter users?http://grouptweet.com/.
Zahoor Hussain
http://www.twitter.com/zahoori
Thanks for the list.
Under politicians, there’s also @joswinson
@Zahoor, I hadn’t, I will now. Also sending you a follow now.
http://www.twitter.com/ehrc is the Equality and Human Rights Commission – in ‘beta’ at the moment. Tried DM’ing you on Twitter, but couldn’t…
Josh – will add it now.
The DM didn’t work because I can’t be following you – sorry! Let me know your Twitter ID and I will put that right (and add you to the list too!)
Lincoln has been Tweeting for a couple of days now (http://www.twitter.com/lincolncouncil); I should hopefully be adding a few more content feeds (Jobs, videos and committees) to our TwitterFeed and, in the new year, looking at how we can use it more than just a tool to redistribute our RSS in one place.
Also, as you know, I’m tweeting however I don’t know as my tweets are too personal for your list?
Independent Parish Councillor http://twitter.com/mjray (also http://identi.ca/mjray but slightly different content).
I have the impression that you don’t consider us humble parish councils part of uk gov, but I could be wrong.
I’m a councillor in Birmingham and I’m on Twitter as of yesterday:
http://twitter.com/PeterSmallbone
Dave, are you maintaining this list still?
If so check out @dfid_uk and @directgov and change me to BERR!
Ta
A great comparison of 86 Local Authority Twitter accounts here:
http://is.gd/tCQ1
Good list of the local authorities that are twittering away – well the first column of the table is !
Not sure that the number of followers is helpful in this setting, does number of followers equate to strength of the authority ?
A lot of those listed are merely using the Twitter account to stream news – not a bad thing as we all want to know what is happening around us, but the really clever authorities in the list can be seen to be listening back and starting up dialouge with their audience.
That ‘engagement factor’ would be good to capture.
Having a member of staff whose role it is to simply monitor the array of social networking sites and respond to questions and postings is not a waste of time and money.
@directgov
cheers,
Paul
@paul_clarke
I’d appreciate being added to the list. I’m a reviewer for Socitm’s Better Connected and (normally) a local authority web manager, but I’m out of action at present due to incapacity.
Twitter: x333xxx
Thanks!
Jeremy Gould is no longer a civil servant, so should probably be moved to freelancers/consultants section.
COI have two official feeds @coigovuk – the main corporate one & @digigov – from the Tranformational Government Team (who are also individually represented by in @adambailin and @tiffanystjames)
The Ministry of Justice has a Twitter feed: @MoJwebteam
P.S. ‘DIUS is now BIS – @BIS_Science’
Hillsborough County is Twittering, with more than 400 followers. not bad for local government.
Thanks for adding us. http://twitter.com/hcnews
@hcnews