UK council wins award for video conferencing scheme: A UK district council has won an award for an e-government project that used video conferencing to deliver information services to people in rural areas. Bassetlaw District Council in North Nottinghamshire won the top prize in the second year of the Consilium District Council eGovernment Innovation Awards. The awards are sponsored by Consilium Technologies, a supplier of IT solutions for local government, and supported by local government organisations including the Society of IT Management (Socitm) and the Improvement and Development Agency (I&DeA). Bassetlaw took the top prize for its BISCUIT (Bassetlaw Information Services Communicating Using IT) project, which resulted in the development of six service centres to provide information and advice, especially in relation to welfare rights and debt, to isolated rural communities through means of video conferencing. The runner-up was Wealden District Council, selected for its local business Web site project.
UK assesses local government Web sites: A study of local authority Web sites in the UK is to be carried out to assess their performance with regard to services for businesses. The Working With Business National Project (WWB NP) has commissioned the three-month survey, which will be undertaken by the Society of IT Management (Socitm), an organisation of local government IT managers. Council Web sites will be assessed in areas including whether they have a dedicated business section and how easy it is to find pertinent business information, such as lists of vacant properties in the area. The sites will also be examined in terms of the number of "transactional" services available for businesses, such as paying rates or ordering waste bins on-line. Socitm will also analyse whether sites are "joined up" with other local government services. The survey, piloted at the end of March, will be carried out in full during April and May.
Victoria rolls out broadband for kindergartens: The government of the state of Victoria in Australia has announced a new initiative to bring broadband to kindergartens. More than 1,200 community and not-for-profit nursery schools will benefit from broadband and IT equipment under the new AUD5 million (EUR3.1 million) programme, said Victorian Premier Steve Bracks in a statement. The programme will involve the installation of computers, software, printers and Internet connections in kindergartens across Victoria over the next four months. "Many community kindergartens have poor IT resources and limited Internet access, which is placing a considerable burden on staff and management committees," said Bracks, adding that the new equipment could be used to collect enrolment data, manage files and produce newsletters. Community Services Minister Sherryl Garbutt noted that the initiative would be of particular benefit to more than 470 provincial kindergartens, many of which are isolated.
Germany launches on-line crime reporting: German citizens will soon be able to report petty crimes on-line, without having to visit a police station. A dedicated Web site will be rolled out where victims of crime in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia can complete on-line questionnaires, which are then submitted to the police for investigation. A number of forms will be available for reporting various incidents, including "theft and deception," "physical injury and insult," "criminal offences in traffic" and "criminal offences in connection with the Internet." The forms will be regarded as legally binding declarations once submitted. The service was successfully piloted in NRW, where it was found that around one-third of offences would not have been reported had it not been for the on-line system. The initiative hopes to reduce the amount of paperwork and bureaucracy for both victims of crime and police, although police trade union officials have expressed scepticism and suggested that on-line reporting may in fact increase police officers' workload.
USDA launches on-line training system: The US Department of Agriculture has launched an on-line training initiative for USDA staff across the US, reports Government Computing News. Dubbed AgLearn, the programme is initially being made available to around 7,000 staff at 12 USDA agencies. The programme allows USDA employees to sign up for classroom or Web-based training at a specially dedicated Web site, http://aglearn.usda.gov. Students can use the site to keep track of their training records, and users will eventually be able to pay for courses through the site. "USDA's Office of Homeland Security has already made plans to deploy two courses on this common infrastructure and USDA's annual civil rights training will be available on AgLearn," said Agriculture CIO Scott Charbo. There are plans to add career-planning tools and links to USDA Graduate School catalogues to the site.
Quelle: Electric News Net, 31.03.2004
