EURIM Monthly Newsletter

Summary Version

The full text for the newsletter summarised below is at http://www.eurim.org.uk/activities/newsletter.pdf

Some items link to material in the members’ area. Please email admin@eurim.org if you do not have your password to hand.

1) Briefing Material for the Class of 2010

The index to the Information Society Alliance briefing material, including links to relevant Government, Select Committee and other Reports, is in the members' area of the website www.eurim.org.uk/members/
briefingmaterial/index.php. It is a “working” website, with the current state of drafts that are being revised and reviewed as well as documents which disappeared from departmental websites with changes of government or policy.

2) Securing the Jobs of the Future for Your Constituency

Stephen McPartland, MP for Stevenage, is now parliamentary chairman of the Knowledge Economy Group. Details by constituency of the populations covered by the “Universal Service Commitment” and current broadband plans are now on the website. The group is looking for MPs who wish to be active in supporting local businesses and jobs, to join the steering group and corporate members interested in working direct with constituency MPs.

3) Delivering More for Less: Improving Delivered Service While Cutting Costs

The Public Service Delivery Group has agreed a short-order programme to identify good practice in the procurement of shared networks and of security. The aim is to help expedite the review of processes, (including of the 50 public buying organisations paying up to 100% different, identified by the recent Audit Commission – NAO study that will follow the current moratorium. The costs of delay include lost public sector savings, damage to potential suppliers and the UK skills base.

4) Information and Identity Governance not just Garbage Protection

The sub-group on individual voter registration has reviewed experiences in nearly 20 countries and next meets on 26th July to review content for a report in the autumn covering methods of voter registration, lessons from other countries, from previous trials in this country and from the elections this year. A draft from the sub-group on identity governance is on the website for review and a more detailed paper is planned for the autumn. The core problem is the lack of attention to interoperability and sharing across the current plethora of fragmented identity schemes with different objectives, structures and governance. On 8th June the sub-group on Quality of Information reviewed a draft covering the main sources of public sector information and provisional key messages and recommendations. This is in the members’ area of the website and a final report is due in the autumn.

5) Making the Internet a Safe Place to Learn, Relax, Shop and Do Business

The UK Internet Governance Forum met on 7th July to discuss inputs to the next world IGF in Vilnius, to which the UK will send a Parliamentary delegation (two from the government benches, two from the opposition). Briefing material on the current state of initiatives with regard to co-operation on e-crime prevention and awareness programmes for consumers and small firms is on the website and CEOP (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency) has offered one-on-one briefings for MPs.

6) Putting the Digital Economy Act and Broadband UK into EU Context

On 21st June the Communications Group agreed inputs to a note for the parliamentary chairman, Malcolm Harbour MEP, to send to the Minister, Ed Vaizey in advance of his consultation meeting on the Universal Service Commitment on 15th June. The focus was on questions for those bidding for UK public sector funding as to how they would deliver the open-access, interoperability and infrastructure sharing necessary to deliver ambitious growth paths at affordable cost.

The group is also looking at how to bring industry and consumer groups together to discuss co-operation in ensuring policies that really do protect consumers from unfair exploitation, at the same time as encouraging investment and innovation in content and infrastructure.

7) Ensuring That Your Voters and their Children have the Skills of the Future

The workforce skills group is looking at how to use University-based short courses to help address the current crisis (quality as well as quantity) in the UK supply of electronic security skills (see section 5 above) to lead in to a wider exercise, with the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing, relevant professional bodies and trade associations and University constituency MPs and political alumni, to turn our growing indigenous skills crises (of atrophying workforce skills) into global opportunities, at affordable cost. Please let me know if you would like an invitation to participate.