I T Matters

Information technology is not a subject that sets many pulses racing, but like many technical subjects the more one knows the more interesting it all becomes.
In this connection I was sad today to have a last meeting with Robert Lavell, the Head of IT at Babergh, who is soon taking well deserved retirement.
Robert has made my role as Babergh’s E Government Champion and Chairman of the IT Management Task Group a lot easier. I have learnt a great deal from him over the past two and a half or so years, not just about IT but also about how the Council as a whole operates. I shall certainly miss him.
After my lunch with Robert I went on to meet members of the East Suffolk Local Strategic Partnership to talk about the project that I have been pursuing with Bob Southgate, the Head of Customer Services at Babergh. This is aimed at improving access to the internet for those who do not, for whatever reasons, have on-line access.
It is a remarkable fact that over 30 percent of households do not have access to the web and as internet provision of information and services becomes more and more widespread this becomes a source of potential social deprivation and exclusion.
This is a complex subject, not least because there are an awful lot of unco-ordinated programmes going on all over Suffolk with the same aim, few of which seem to be talking to the others. Just today we learnt about several further initiatives that we had not previously known about.
While the best schemes of this type are probably local initiatives that suit local needs, a little bit of joined up thinking seems to be in order in this area. The project continues.