London Regional ICT Champion

A recent report from Charity Finance magazine highlights the current state of IT in the UK voluntary sector and makes some interesting predictions about future developments.

Some key findings include:

1. Increased demand for and availability of remote access to office networks

2/3 of organisations report that at least some of their staff can access their network remotely, up from 56% from in 2006. On average 44% of the organisation’s staff are able to do so, a slight increase from 2006.

This is being driven by increased availability and access to high speed broadband Internet and secondly, as of 6 April, the“right to request flexible working has been extended to include carers of adults, in addition to parents, and their partners, of children agend under 6, or under 18 if the child is disabled. this will have an effect on the way in which people want to work even more.” Ian Ryder of appiChar

2. Microsoft Vista
Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows Vista has grabbed all the headlines.

• 91% do not intend to upgrade to Vista over the next year
• 29% believe it will cause disruption to business
• 29% cite price as a key factor in not upgrading
• 3% currently use Vista, 69% use Windows XP
• 74% believe their current operating system meets their needs
• 50% state average age of their computers to be 2 to 3 years old

3. Budgets
Research from Lasa and others consistantly shows that voluntary organisations do not understand the cost and complexity of IT, and fail to budget accordingly. The report finds:

• 30% have a budget of less than £5,00, with 25% having a budget of between £5-£10,000
• capital spending on hardware continues to fall, down to 30% of IT expenditure
• spending on maintenance has also fallen to 31% of IT expenditure
• Spending on websites and databases has grown to 11% and 6% of IT expenditure
• 30% anticipate their budget will increase over the next year

4. Governance
Here at ICT Champion Towers, we’ve continually talked about the need for voluntary organisations to organise themselves to make good ICT decisions. The report finds that:

• Only 50% admit their cheif executive is closely involved in IT decisions – the same as in 2006
• 34% have IT representation on their board, up from 16% in 2006. In many cases, this is in the form of the finance director

The Charity Finance Voluntary Sector Survey 2007 report included responses from 285 organisations:

• 1/3 income of under £1 million
• 15% income between £1 million and £3 million
• 10% income over £10 million
• 29% have 10 staff or fewer