INTERNET GURU CALLS FOR LOCAL

COUNCIL HELP

The government’s champion of digital inclusion, Martha Lane-Fox, has called on local (parish and town) councils to help her get four million economically disadvantaged people to learn about and use the internet.

The former co-founder of lastminute.com, Europe’s largest travel and leisure website, told delegates at NALC’s Larger Local Councils’ Conference, Empowering Communities, that: “Ten million people have never used the internet and four million of these are economically disadvantaged. We want to turn this around by raising awareness, getting local and central government to lead by example, spreading best practice and finally, through training and development.

Interestingly, she argued that: “Digital inclusion is a boring way to describe something exciting. I want to challenge those four million people to go digital by 2012.”

Other speakers at the conference included Jo Miller, deputy chief executive of the Local Government Association (LGA), who said when discussing the importance of localism that: “Local people want to make decisions locally and they know best what services they want to protect.”

And Andy Sawford, chief executive of LGIU (Local Government Information Unit), said of the effect the economic climate is having on local councils: “We are facing a period of disruptive change. We also have to be able to deal with change and have to adapt more rapidly.”

Further he said: “The ambitions should not be the directions things are going, but how you can be a voice for your community.”

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