Comparative Study of Public e-Service Centres in - ePractice.eu

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PUBLIC E-SERVICE CENTRES IN EUROPE - Design of the Digiroom with necessary equipment; - Use of the appropriate methodologies, software (in license) and tools; - Secure data environment on central server. After that the implementation starts with PR campaigns in the neighbourhood and training. The national organisation helps with the implementation in the first three years of the initiative. During this period the sustainability of the project is examined. This starts with securing commitment. If possible the project is integrated within an already existing organisation and infrastructure. This assures that operational costs are kept to a minimum. Only the payment of a part time staff member has to be financed. WiN is researching the possibilities of starting similar projects abroad in cooperation with other organisations. It would welcome the establishment of a practice community with similar organisations to exchange tools, methodologies software and start projects together. WiN already has contacts in Italy, Spain, Sweden, England, and Latvia. It founded Vit@l Society 17 , a consortium which made a declaration on the new social use of the internet. This was supported e.g. the Nordic Council and the Baltic IT&T Conference 2006. In 2008 WiN will publish a book on the methodologies developed and used. The niche of the WiN project is not so much the software it uses but the methodology of training, educating and communicating using the Internet as a tool for empowerment and community building. E. Financial WiN has received financing from a variety of sources. Primarily from: - the EQUAL programme of the European Commission which made local pilots possible in six neighbourhoods; - Housing corporations; - Municipalities; - Private funding including the National VSB fund and the Oranjefonds. All funding of the WiN foundation has been project finance. So far, no structural subsidies have been granted. This makes the sustainability of many of the projects insecure. All local projects plus the national WiN foundation, rely on a small amount funding. Operational costs are now relatively low with less than 50k per year per project. For the sustainability of WiN and the local projects, a solid business plan is necessary. WiN is therefore working on a strategic business plan for future activities. The business plan focuses on: - Training of staff - Software licenses - Consultancy on implementation - Consultancy on methodology F. Recipes for success WiN shows that educating people is at the core of projects on the social use of ICT. Education is not only focused on the users, but starts with the people employed at the centres. This assures a quality standard and stimulates the empowerment of people. The animators can support people in using the internet as a tool to facilitate their activities. As Kuiper explains: “On the popular video platform YouTube around one percent of visitors really contribute to the community. WiN is built on the idea that there is a continuing interaction possible between the physical and virtual world if you bring Internet to attractive social places in the neighbourhood. The actual building and updating of users websites can easily be done by the person him/herself. The result of using this software for the design of websites and web applications is that people are no longer thinking: I'm developing a website in the technical sense, but more what am I going to use it for, what can I do with it and how can I use it to reach out to other people. Then the eagerness for some professional advice starts" 17 See: New social use of ICT: http://peabody.org.uk/Filestore/AboutUs/Downloads/NewSocialUseOfICT.pdf - 12 -
PUBLIC E-SERVICE CENTRES IN EUROPE Lessons learnt Lesson 1: WiN works from a project management perspective. Kuipers: “Often we are confronted with result orientated policy objectives set by a local government. For example they want to organise a festival for marginalised young people and request that fifteen different organisations and groups are involved in order to guarantee proportional representation. This does not work for an initiative like WiN. We work programme related and bottom-up. We cannot guarantee the participation of all these groups. In our approach we need freedom and trust to let us organise the best ways to involve users. Our methods and track record should give enough assurance to the policy makers. But this is not always the reality.” Lesson 2: A project like WiN needs three years (at least) to work on methodology, to build a track record and to manage setting up all aspects of the organisation at national and local level. Then a period of consolidation and growth starts. This should be followed by a period of codification in which methodology and results are properly analysed, adjusted and disseminated. In local, national and European programmes this development is not recognised and it is almost impossible to get any finance for this codification phase. Lesson 3: Workers in the social sector are not by default interested in educating their clients in eSkills. Convincing social sector workers of the benefits of eSkills support needs a coordinated and sensible approach. G. Policy & Strategy WiN operates in the fields of health, education, science, culture, media, and employment. This means its activities contribute to policy objectives of five ministries in the Netherlands. But projects like WiN only succeed if they have enough backing and the support of various partners in the sport, welfare, labour, and health sector. WiN has this support but this is the pitfall: WiN, being multi-sectoral, does not qualify for many subsidies and policy arrangements as Ministries do not acknowledge the activities of WiN as their primary responsibility and point to other departments within government. As a result, all the support, awards and recognition do not result in structural financial support or in project finance. The national board of WiN has plans for expansion and is looking for partners to be able to scale up to more neighbourhoods. - 13 -
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Page 9 and 10: 2 CONDUCTED INTERVIEWS PUBLIC E-SER
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Page 19 and 20: 2.3 Interview with Krassi Simonski
Page 23 and 24: 2.4 Interview with Audrey Frith 20
Page 39 and 40: Services offered in partnership wit

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