London Regional ICT Champion

A quick plug for my colleagues at Lasa…

I thought it would be worth bringing the Supporting Advice in London: Review of Infrastructure Needs report to people’s attention as it contains a few lines on ICT and suggests circuit riding as possible model of ICT support.

The report was commissioned to review the support needs of organisations providing advice and guidance services – and summarises the survey responses of 103 organisations.
Just to give you a flavour of the edited highlights:

• Rated as high priority – increasing organisational infrastructure eg ICT and being able to use ICT effectively in advice giving;
• 41% said they had accessed ICT support services in the past 12 months
• 80% said they anticipated accessing ICT support services in the next 12 months
• 64% reported support needs for databases and case management software
• 53% require support with accessing computers to carry out advice work. Smaller organisations tend not to have web access to advice resources.

Once again, this is a situation we find this findings mirrored in other parts of the voluntary sector. So what are the potential solutions for (a) increasing access to ICT support services and (b) promoting new technologies that are low cost, sustainable and aid colloboration between advice agencies and the people they campaign for?

So far, the work of circuit riders has been mainly strategic – encouraging organisations to think about their ICT strategy, budget, training needs, etc – and working intensively with them to build organisational ICT capacity.

Can we see a need for a ‘second generation’ circuit rider – one who works for a network of affiliated organisations and provides a combination of hands on tech support and championing/implementing new technology? And if we can champion ICT at a London-level then shouldn’t we be able to champion ICT at organisational or network level? How could this work – could network members band together and budget for their own support worker? Or are funders amenable to supporting community networks with a circuit rider? Is this the next step for community networks?
Unfortunately, I’ve got more questions than answers at this moment….Over to you.

You can download the full report: Supporting Advice in London Full Version. or the summary version: Supporting Advice in London Summary Report