EURIM Working Group Minutes

Working Party:	Theme 01/ Working Group
Ref:	02-T02-Min05
Minuter:	Emma Fryer
Date:	11/12/02
Circulation:	Attendees and Apologies
Queries to:	Emma Fryer, Tel: 0191 384 0282 Mob: 07714 803 650 Emma.fryer@eurim.org

Minutes of the second EURIM scoping meeting on Social Exclusion

(sub-group of the Modernising Government Activity Theme)

11^th December 2002, kindly hosted by Margaret Moran MP

Summary

Meeting outline and main points of agreement

1. The existing draft overview of ICT and Social Exclusion was reviewed and a number of suggested amendments agreed.

2. A number of key policy issues were identified through discussion

3. It was agreed that a summary page would be composed that identified several of these key issues that government was currently failing to address.

4. The existing draft overview would be used as background to complement this one page summary.

5. EURIM was well placed to target this message at the right political level and would take the opportunity to do so with the assistance of group members.

Actions Arising

1. RS to produce a one page summary of the policy issues arising at the meeting
2. KC, HT, KA, BN , GS and FG to help compose this one page summary
3. All to consider and propose target organisations for this message.

Papers Circulated in advance of the meeting

1. Draft paper on ICT and Social Exclusion by Richard Sykes (copies available from RS or EF)
2. Minutes of the previous meeting (copies available from EF)
3. Agenda (copies available from EF)

References

1. ICT and Social Exclusion – see circulated papers

2. References not available

3. Neighbourhood Renewal Unit http://www.neighbourhood.gov.uk/

4. HumanITy home page http://www.humanity.org.uk

5. Treasury Spending Reviews http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/spending_review/spend_index.cfm or see EURIM Guide to Modernising Government: http://www.eurim.org (Members only part of website)

6. Social Disadvantage Research Centre http://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Esdrc/pages/index/index.html

7. Cambridge University Park Engineering Design Centre http://www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/inclusivedesign/

8. Andragogy vs. pedagogy (Bernie Dodge) http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/index.htm

Next Meeting Date

TBC

Meeting Notes

			Action
1		Chairman’s introduction
	1.1	RS welcomed everyone and outlined the objectives of the meeting – to build on the work of the last meeting and move forward from scoping the issues to try and identify the kind of contribution EURIM could make. They would then assess how this might be achieved in the light of the level of commitment and resources available, and allocate areas of responsibility if appropriate.
2		Setting the scene
	2.1	RS was encouraged by the good cross-section of expertise brought to the meeting, which would help inform the process. Those present represented ICT providers, grass roots projects, working interfaces, practitioners and lobbyists.
	2.2	RS referred to the draft document (on ICT and Social Exclusion), which he had revised in the light of comments at the last meeting, and circulated to members. This had started as an overview of the issues to help focus debate. He asked whether the revised version continued to provide a suitable overview of the issues they were addressing.	Ref 1
3		Feedback on the draft document
	3.1	RSm made three observations i. It was important to remind the reader that ICT did not just imply PCs but involved telecommunications and digital TV, and many other applications. This was agreed. ii. The word consultation be included in section 2d. Participation was the key to e-democracy. iii. To mention the Data Protection Act in section 4a. Some useful initiatives were not allowed under the terms of the Act. This was agreed.
	3.2	AN noted that the document should consider global diasporas and the importance of ICT to help dispersed communities stick together.
	3.3	GS suggested that the impact of culture (both positive and negative) on social exclusion should be considered. (e.g. some girls were forbidden to use the internet by their parents because of the content they might come across – irrespective of availability the associated threat to their cultural values would prevent access).
	3.4	NP was concerned about definitions. If someone deliberately opted out was this considered exclusion? Some of the figures implied that this was the case. He was also confused as to the purpose of the paper – was it to stimulate wider discussion or to open a dialogue with No. 7?
	3.5	RS replied that his objective was to reach a view that identified two or three aspects of policy where there appeared to be something significantly wrong, and where EURIM had a good opportunity to expose these elements and help set them right. These could be presented in the form of a one page document, backed up by an overview of the issues in the form of the revised draft. The target audience was a range of players and organisations with involvement or interest in this agenda. Today’s objective was to identify the issues that would comprise the one page.
	3.6	NP agreed that the existing draft provided a high level overview and would need only minor adjustments to make a good background document to complement a summary sheet of issues.
	3.7	KA observed that the definition of inclusion vs exclusion was problematic. Her experience in B&Q had shown that people tended to self-exclude because they made assumptions about what would be available to them. Labelling could also create problems and stereotypes. KC noted that in practice labels were the only way to get recognition and funding. Ideal social theory was all very good but once disability provisions were integrated into mainstream strategies they could easily be lost. KA observed that there was a compromise – if disability access provisions were not built in to specifications, then problems could arise when changes were made. One example was that a recent change to a piece of website technology had unexpectedly curtailed disabled access to the website, thus excluding those users. RSm referred to the concept of a “digital ladder” rather than “digital divide”, which helped avoid exclusion or inclusion labels.
	3.8	AN observed that there was too much focus on access, but the real problem for users was accessing useful information without being swamped with rubbish. This was agreed. FG noted that in the US a recent survey of a large sample found that users considered 96-99% of web-based content to be “useless”. Once you solved the access problem the next problem was evaluation rather than putting up new content. KC agreed:- the problems had moved from physical access to uptake. Education was one way to do this but it was important to ensure that ICT was delivering benefits to others than those who supplied it.	Ref 2
	3.9	BN was concerned that the paper did not give explicit enough definitions. The many current definitions (ODPM, Neighbourhood Renewal unit, etc) focused on disabilities not social deprivation and this needed to be redressed.	Ref 3
	3.10	KC noted that government figures estimated around 25 million people were excluded from online services. The vast majority of these were normal people who did not think email was any use to them. Only a small proportion of these were disabled or fundamentally alienated from the system. HumanITy had run their own demographic study based on functional gaps between what people could do and what information systems could deliver and found around 45% were excluded – roughly the same figure. Functional gaps developing between people and systems were a problem.	Ref 4
4		EURIM’s Potential Role
	4.1	RS reviewed the function of EURIM - to look at particular policy areas where there were problems – whether in fundamental policy or in implementation - and present carefully prepared messages from its members to make policy makers sit up and take another view. As a conduit into the policy-making apparatus EURIM had a major impact on debate.
	4.2	This topic presented an opportunity for EURIM to contribute to issues that were part of the heartland politics of the current government. There was little debate over the underlying issue – that society was not as inclusive as it could be. The concern was the impact of the ICT revolution that the government was turning to in many ways and that the way it was being carried forward might worsen social exclusion. If there were areas where policy – or the implementation of policy - was misaligned with the obvious objective of exploiting ICT to improve social cohesion and inclusion, then EURIM had the opportunity to explain and present this problem to policy makers. Focus, clarity and determination would be needed.
	4.3	Focus was key – a great deal of work was already underway in the private sector and so, rather than reinvent this, EURIM’s key role should be to act as a conduit to bring together key learning and experience, putting it into context and involving it in the debate. The challenge was to identify where EURIM could have beneficial impact and take this opportunity to inject the right message into the policy debate.
5		Report by Barbara Nielsen
	5.1	BN tabled an overview of government activity on social exclusion and neighbourhood renewal. It also covered the Treasury Spending Review and how departmental targets had been set for social exclusion and incorporated into the PSA (Public Service Agreement) for each department.	Ref 5
	5.2	BN ran through the different governmental objectives to illustrate the current priorities and the structures and processes in place to deliver. Children in care, runaways, and transport were priorities and this left large gaps in the wider social exclusion agenda. For instance, DEFRA’s targets included recycling, composing and improving air quality but did not touch on rural social deprivation.
	5.3	One problem was that whilst central government operated in silos, everything was devolved downward to local government, so decisions on target levels were being made by ministers as part of the spending review process, systems were not joined up at central government level and the burden was being shifted to local government.
	5.4	LGA and IDEA and the Disadvantage Research Centre at Oxford University were doing excellent work in this area and the local government level was the best place to understand social exclusion.	Ref 6
	5.5	RS thanked BN for her valuable work. The key thing was not just putting resources into access but ensuring take-up and that people were getting benefit from ICT.
6		Additional comments and observations
	6.1	KC made four observations: i. A huge amount could be done to improve accessibility without resorting to rocket science, such as allowing people to customise layouts and print size so that online material was readable for them. Research indicated that usage would increase by 12% if the information was made more usable in these basic ways, and it was technologically simple and relatively inexpensive to do. Education and training systems were evolving more slowly than information processing systems so people were being taught to do things that could increasingly be done by machines – effectively giving them skills that would nail them at the bottom of the social ladder. Social exclusion strategy was still rigidly geographical and focused resources on providing kit and services rather than human resources. To break the social deprivation cycle adventurous and increased use of mentoring, twinning and human interfaces was vital. Broadband and cable interfaces could revolutionise the way people worked in small groups and meant that people in an area with poor schools need not have poor online internet training because virtual resources could overcome geographical and social disparities.	RS
	6.2	KA noted that architects, designers, whether of buildings or websites or ICT systems were not being given information on disability access so it was not being factored in.
	6.3	HT introduced the Cambridge University Park Engineering Design Centre, which advised people designing primary interfaces how to achieve social inclusion. They used a diagnostic tool to benchmark different interfaces against an inclusive design framework. This identified the demographics that would be excluded, showed how the interfaces being tested limited access and suggested how matters might be improved.	Ref 7
	6.4	KC noted that the majority of excluded people - such as those who found it hard to read in bad light, people who do not speak English as a first language, etc - did not form part of these minority demographics. Disability rights were only a tiny part of that equation.
	6.5	GS noted that education and training systems would inevitably evolve slowly because they were large, cumbersome and subject to a number of different pressures. Youth work was on a smaller scale and therefore more flexible. Informal education had a lot to offer because it had the freedom to focus on what would interest young people and could give those not succeeding in the formal school environment opportunities to excel. Some such students had been given web based tools and quickly transcended the abilities of their teachers whilst gaining skills that were useful in the real world. If focus could be redirected outside traditional agendas people need not be given skills that restricted them to a cycle of poverty.
	6.6	AN observed that technology fostered the formation of non geographical communities which enabled very rapid change at a low level. Central government was inclined to control rather than facilitate but the rate of change was now too high for government to invest resources feasibly in centralised systems. GS noted that the small scale of youth work made it hard to attract support and investment. There was an inevitable conflict between the desire to open young people’s perspectives and the need to demonstrate that public money was being well spent, and a number of recent scams had illustrated that greater accountability was needed. Involving the funders and the community in dialogue would help each side identify the expectations they had of each other and the opportunities available.
	6.7	BN noted that the DCMS creative partnerships (part of the national neighbourhood renewal strategy) provided some useful precedents. RSm noted that this exercise was aimed at school children, rather than the community at large and as such it was not joined up. He agreed that the role of intermediaries was becoming increasingly important. He supported BN’s observation that local government bore the brunt of the exclusion agenda, and noted that the distance from Whitehall to the deliverer was very large and complex. He noted that the Learning and Skills Councils had £5bn of government money for adult education and should be involved in the debate. Treasury attitudes were still a problem because they were still very risk averse. If there were no failure it would indicate that the project boundaries had not been pushed far enough.	Ref 3
	6.8	NP observed that the political case for using ICT in addressing social exclusion had not been sufficiently made or communicated and at the least EURIM should articulate the benefits of using ICT in communities. They had to work within the existing policy backdrop, not expect new initiatives, recognise that much was already underway, and think in terms of outcomes within communities. RS agreed. The focus should be on outcomes at the community level. The political imperative was therefore creating or stimulating the pull factor at grass roots levels.
	6.9	FG observed that:- i. When a community responsive curriculum had been devised it failed to fit the LSC funding model, which required measurable outputs. Ideas that accommodated change and community inclusion were not supported by existing funding mechanisms. ii. There was the issue of androgogy vs. pedagogy (self-directed learning vs. directed learning) to consider. iii. The skill-set needed for effective citizenship in e-government was similar to that required for e-learning. New skill-sets were emerging but had not yet been recognised. Qualifications were therefore not mapped to these new skills, or to new combinations of skills. These new skills and responsibilities were still disguised under old titles and funding patterns were still focused on these traditional patterns.	Ref 8
	6.10	AN observed that diversification was the way to handle risk. Many small scale projects, where the successful lessons could be disseminated, were preferable to one huge scheme. Traditional centralised policy making could not handle the speed of change and policy should be made outside government with central support or endorsement. KC observed that the problem was not with policy but with methodology.
7		Recap of discussion
	7.1	Broadband enabled a more adventurous approach to working and learning practices, with particular emphasis on small groups. Tackling social deprivation effectively relied on more human resources at the sharp end. Without this, investment in kit and services would not help. Broadband allowed geographical restrictions to be overcome. Processing system automation was outpacing education and training and people were being given the wrong skills.
	7.2	The informal education approach, in small groups, not bound to institutions, could find ways to engage learners on their own terms and motivate them into real achievements. Technology enabled real education within a community learning environment.
	7.3	What was needed were more people owned by the local community with the time and resource to build the information processes. It was not just a technical process but had to be mediated.
	7.4	There was a broad range of existing initiatives to tackle exclusion and ICT issues, but without many linkages between them.
8		Chairman’s summary – policy issues
	8.1	The Chairman summarised the policy issues that had emerged from the discussion
		· Effective risk management was central to success and had to replace the traditional desire for centralised control. · More people were needed at the sharp end – the community interface. Access and kit were not enough:- intermediaries or mentors with the requisite skills and sufficient time were essential. The ICT revolution would not take away jobs – more and more people were needed at the community interface. · The ICT industry could improve user engagement in online services by presenting material in more usable or more flexible formats, which responded to their physical needs. · There was strong political focus on ensuring access, and impressive effort being put into rolling out infrastructure and applications but the political focus must be changed to evaluate success on the basis of outputs rather than inputs. Real success relied on creating genuine customer “pull”. · To achieve this, Government must consider the diversity of ways in which local communities work – whether cultural, informal, educational or behavioural. The political process had to shift power to the community.
9		Actions and responsibilities
	9.1	All agreed that the points above could be captured in a one-page summary and circulated for comment. Actions would be divided into two stages. The first stage was to draw up and agree the one-pager, and the second to circulate it to a wider group of people involved in this agenda who should be brought into the debate.
	9.2	KC, HT, BN, GS, KA and FG all agreed to assist RS in editing the one-pager.
	9.3	All members agreed to help circulate the message to a broader audience and help to draw other interested parties into the debate.	ALL
10		Next Meeting Date
	10.1	A review meeting would be scheduled after the drafting subgroup had met.

Attendance – 11^th December 2002

F name	Surname	Organisation
Kay	Allen	BSkyB
Kevin	Carey	HumanITy
Trevor	de Sá	CMG
Emma	Fryer	EURIM Rapporteur
Fred	Garnett	BECTa
Barbara	Nielsen	Individual Observer
Adrian	Norman	BCS
Christine	Oddy	Former Parliamentarian
Nick	Penston	Cisco Systems
Gavin	Sealey	Newham
Rick	Smith
Richard	Sykes	Dr R.J. Sykes
Henryk	Trzebiatowski	Consignia plc

Apologies:

Val	Beech	EURIM Staff
Alastair	Bellingham	NHS Information Authority
John	Bullard	Identrus
Sheridan	Burnside	Office of the e-Envoy
Ingrid	Clifford-Jones	OeE
Sefton	Darby	Office of the e-Envoy
Earl of	Erroll	House of Lords
David	Fisher	EDS
Katrina	Giles	AOL
Liz	Grant	DTI
Nig	Greenaway	Fujitsu Services
Bob	Griffith	SOCITM
Sara	Griffiths	PRO
Andrew	Hardie	IMIS
Julia	Jeffs	DfES
Melinda	Johnson	CIPS
Roger	Marshall	Corporation of London
Arlene	McCarthy	MEP
Eryl	McNally	MEP
Margaret	Moran	MP
Patrick	Newman	Freedomland Internet TV
Sara	Nicholls	CMG
Baroness	Nicholson of Winterbourne	MEP
Lord	Renwick	EURIM
David	Rippon	BCS
Caroline	Spacey	Mantix
Peter	Taylor	BCS
Ian	Taylor	MP
Sarah	Terry	AOL Time Warner
David	Todd	Aviva plc (CGNU)
Theresa	Villiers	MEP
Philip	Virgo	EURIM
Keith	White	IBM UK Ltd