We’ve spotted a useful article on LinkedIn by Laura Dunn, which talks about what MPs or staff who are leaving Parliament should do to tidy up their digital profiles and prepare for what comes next.

You can read the whole thing on LinkedIn here but highlights include

• make sure you have updated your social media profiles to reflect your employment change. Edit to ‘former MP’ or ‘former staffer’
• Unhook your parliamentary email from your social media accounts and link to a personal email or set one up just for social media
• Invest in new photos
• put together a digital portfolio/website

To what extent are offices leveraging modern tools to do their work? Does technology have a significant effect on what they can get done? And how much does this vary between one office and another?

Are you working in an MP’s office? If so, we need your help to understand how technology could be used to make your work easier. By taking just 10-15 minutes to share your experiences in this survey[https://qfreeaccountssjc1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_abh2Mlnt2CvE9hk], you can make a valuable contribution to this important research.

Your responses are anonymous – we aren’t collecting personally identifying data and nobody will have access to individual responses beyond our research team. If there are questions you prefer not to answer, you can skip over them to the next question.

A tree will be planted for every response we receive!

A joint project by W4MP and LCPT, the Parliament Workflow Study is a research project inspired by the question: “How is technology changing the work of politics?” 

The findings from this study will be shared publicly with the goal of identifying best practices and areas for improvement in how MPs’ offices operate. We hope these insights can help MPs and their staff take full advantage of technology to better serve their constituents and work more effectively.

Ready to participate? Take the survey now

We greatly appreciate you taking the time to participate. To learn more about the Parliament Workflow Study, visit our website at https://www.parliamentworkflowstudy.org. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our team at [email protected].

If you’re interested in hearing about the results of our research, subscribe at parliamentworkflowstudy.org.

We’ve received a press release from the Antisemitism Policy Trust about their guide on conspiracy theories.

You can read the guide on their website. It has been written with expert groups including the Antisemitism Policy Trust, Full Fact, Tell MAMA [The charity working to combat anti-Muslim hate], the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and The Global Network on Extremism & Technology.

https://antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Conspiracy-Theory-Guide.pdf

Press Release

Leading figures in parliament today united to launch A Guide for Members of Parliament and Candidates on Conspiracy Theories. Commissioned by the Leader of the House of Commons, Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt MP, and launched by both Ms Mordaunt and Shadow Leader of the House, Lucy Powell MP, the guide was drawn together by expert groups including the Antisemitism Policy Trust, Full Fact, Tell MAMA [The charity working to combat anti-Muslim hate], the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and The Global Network on Extremism & Technology.

Continue reading

The Taylor Bennett Foundation is a charity that exists to encourage people from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background to pursue a career in communications. Their award-winning PR Training Programme is a paid, full-time, eight-week training programme in Public Relations (PR) and Communications designed to equip participants from a Black, Asian & minority ethnic background with the relevant knowledge, insights and skills to work in the PR and communications industry.

They are now looking for applications for their latest round of traineeships, run in partnership with HSBC UK. The programme runs from May 20th – July 10th 2024.

To be eligible

• You must be from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background.
• You must be a graduate or graduated within the last three years. We accept applications from graduates who have studied any subject.
• You must be strongly interested in pursuing a career in Public Relations (PR) and communications.
• You must be a British national or have an immigration status that allows you to be employed in the UK at the end of the programme.

Full details can be found here: https://www.taylorbennettfoundation.org/pr-training-programme-candidates

Closing Date: 15 April 2024

ParliNet, Parliament’s new intranet, will launch tomorrow, Monday 16 October.

ParliNet will be accessible from anywhere, on any device, using a parliamentary login, and will replace the current intranet as a place to go for timely, trusted and relevant information.

On Monday, staff be sent more information to your parliamentary emails about how to get access to the site. There will also be an information stand in the weeks after ParliNet launches, to ask questions or receive advice about using ParliNet, as well as online and in-person demo sessions.

ParliNet and w4mp

We will be migrating existing intranet links to the new site, but this will not be a simple update as the structure and content of the new site is very different from the current one. We will complete the update before the old intranet is turned off at the end of the month.