| Mark Wright | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1974 Bristol |
Dr Mark Wright is a software engineer and Executive Councillor responsible for Housing, Service Improvement and IT on Bristol City Council in Bristol, England [1]. He has been councillor for Cabot ward since 2005, and was re-elected in 2009.[2]
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Mark Wright was born in Bristol in 1974, went to schools in Bristol and has a degree in chemistry from Bristol University. He also completed a PhD in astrophysics at Bristol University. This PhD on "interstellar hydroxyl masers" won the Royal Astronomical Society's prize for "Best PhD in the UK" in 2002 [3]
In his role on the council executive, Mark Wright is responsible for nearly 30,000 council houses in the city that house over 60,000 residents - one of the largest retained stocks of housing in the country - and is responsible for the spend of about £150m of public money per year [4]. He has initiated the first council house building program in Bristol for nearly 30 years [5][6] and launched a drive to get empty homes in the city back into use [7]. Under his IT remit he also tightened the Council's rules on RIPA authorisations to limit council "snooping" on residents [8][9][10]. He was also chairman of one of the City Council's planning committees from 2007-2009.
He is a member of the South West Provisional Council [11] and sits on the "West of England Partnership" Planning and Housing Board, which oversees policy in the former Avon area. [12]. He is a Governor of St George's Primary School, which he helped to save from closure in 2008 [13].
He has a record of opposing ID cards [14][15], supporting tidal power in the Severn Estuary [16], and campaigning for reform of Parliamentary expenses [17]. He has also campaigned against nuclear power [18][19] and against light pollution [20][21]. In 2006 he helped save a popular piece of graffiti by renowned local artist Banksy. An online petition Mark started collected over 3,500 signatures and was at that time the biggest e-Petition the council had ever received. [22].
He was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Bristol South constituency at the 2010 General Election.
Since taking the responsibility for IT at Bristol City Council in 2009, Wright has become a vocal proponent of Open Source[23][24], open document formats[25], and open data in UK local government[26][27]. He speaks at IT conferences to highlight the problems still faced by public sector organisations wanting to avoid "vendor lock-in", particularly to Microsoft.[28][29]