COUNCILS JOIN FORCES TO MAKE BEST USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN COMMUNITIES

Sunderland City Council has won the Government’s Digital Challenge competition and gets 3 million pounds to deliver its plans for a digitally enabled community to benefit vulnerable and socially excluded people. The city will also work now with the other finalists in the competition who have formed the DC10 to progress the use of technology to deal with social exclusion.

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LOCAL AUTHORITIES URGED TO LOOK AT WIDER IMPACT OF TRAFFIC POLICIES

Town centre managers will be told today that a third of shoppers would drive to a different place if a five pound congestion charge were introduced in the town or city where they currently shop. Edmund King, director of the motoring organisation, the RAC Foundation, will tell the annual conference of the Association of Town Centre Management that too many local councils look at traffic and transport in isolation and do not consider the wider needs of their areas.

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This survey of local government websites from the Society of IT Management shows that the number of councils with transaction websites has risen to 121, which is double the number recorded last year. Transaction website are those where people can transact business with the council, in contrast to sites which are restricted to providing information. 468 sites across the UK were surveyed, but only Barking & Dagenham achieved the new ‘excellent’ rating. Salford City, Surrey CC and West Lancashire DC missed the excellent rating by one failure out of nine criteria.The practice of getting people to register for online services was examined in 168 sites with a registration process, Only 19 sites of these sites were found to have a registration form that is secure with a ‘url’ prefixed with ‘https’. The reviewers considered all 19 sites to be well presented, with the registration process and reasons for registering clearly described. The report expresses concern that the majority of sites were not considered secure.

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