Mar 07 2008
Sayonara ICT Hub and Final Hub Newsletter 2008
As you’re probably aware Capacity Builders “investment at a national level will be refocused from the six National Hubs to nine National Support Service workstreams”. ICT will no longer be a dedicated workstream and is now envisaged as a cross-cutting theme.
The Hub has been heavily criticised and wilfully misunderstood in some quarters – not least by Third Sector mag – but in our humble opinion has still delivered high quality resources – the Knowledgebase, Suppliers Directory and publications – the equal of anything else bequethed by the other hubs.
As of writing, the Hub’s legacy resources are currently not funded beyond 31 March, and their future remains in some doubt whilst we lobby Capacity Builders to support their continued development and availability to the sector as free resources. If you’re reading this and want the Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory to continue – let us know about it, it’s important that their value to the sector is acknowledged.
As for the future, releases from Capacity Builders indicate that:
Three year investment in regional ICT champions will be provided through NAVCA. The investment will be £300k in 2008/9 and £400k in each of the subsequent two financial years. The work will focus on ‘hands-on’ advice and networking between ICT support providers, working closely with ChangeUp consortia and other support providers.
There will be an initial investment of £150k in 2008/9 in the work of ruralnet to continue to develop the work of appropriate net:gain centres exploring a more market based approach to local provision of ICT support for the third sector. Financial support will be available in each of the following two financial years but these will be tapered grants in recognition of the market based approach of the work.
Whilst the Hub is no more, the London Champion project will continue in some way, shape or form – so watch this space.
Lastly, as a public service we’re providing a PDF of ICT Hub March 2008 Newsletter (42KB) for all our readers.
2 responses so far
Hi Michael – you might be interested in plans to collaborate internationally on a toolkit – http://tinyurl.com/yq95mo – as part of the Membership Project, which we’ll be promoting more widely next week. Hope you’ll join in: just request an account.
Thanks for this Miles
Throughout all of Watfordgap’s travels the Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory are constantly quoted to me as the best thing the ICT Hub has produced.
Lets do what we can to keep these resources there for the sector.