Finance

Communications

Legal

Index of annexes

Dylan Jeffrey

LTIE

Annex A

PQ Responses (dated 21 July 2008)

PQ 4704 07/08 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what budget her Department has allocated to the Read My Day/Blog-in-a-Box platform for each of the next three financial years; and if she will make a statement.

We have agreed to provide funding of £10,590 to provide the required funding for the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform to operate until October 2011.

We are writing to all users on the platform to inform them of the decision and to encourage the establishment of a user group to seek how the platform can be made sustainable beyond this date. It is hoped that this seed funding will provide the opportunity for users to take control of this important asset and secure its future for them and other civic leaders.

PQ 4705 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many visits have been made to the International Centre of Excellence for Local e-Democracy website since its launch; and if she will make a statement.

Since the launch of the ICELE website in October 2006 there have been over 750,000 visits. In the last 6 full months to 30 June 2008, approximately 300,000 visits have been recorded.

PQ 4706 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what plans her Department has to maintain and promote the resources and toolkits developed by the International Centre for Excellence for Local e-Democracy; and if she will make a statement.

A Review is currently being conducted by my officials and the International centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy to establish the current content and web traffic to the site. We are keen to retain the resources and toolkits developed by the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy and the previous Local e-Democracy National Project incorporated into it.

My Department is exploring the options currently available including the use existing web resources to promote the empowerment agenda.

PQ 4707 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many community groups have created websites using the Voice platform sponsored by her Department since the platform was launched; and if she will make a statement.

There are currently 3,362 community groups who have created websites and are registered on the VOICE site or using its open source derivatives.

PQ 4708 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much funding her Department has given to the International Centre for Excellence for Local e-Democracy to support the Voice platform; and if she will make a statement.

The Voice platform has been constructed from an amalgam of different national projects and partnerships within the Local e-Government Programme which ran from 2002-06.

Funding directly attributable to the product was for £3,500,000 for the Environment and Community Online Residents e-Services (ENCORE) National Project, £350,000 for the Local Directgov Neighbourhoods and Parish Councils Project and £234,000 allocated to International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy for further development and coding issues.

PQ 4709 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what budget allocation her Department has made for the maintenance of the Voice platform for each of the next two financial years.

The Voice platform is fully funded up to April 2009 using existing resources allocated to the International centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) and thus fulfilling current subscriptions to the service.

The Voice Platform is almost self-sufficient via local authority and voluntary organisation subscriptions. Negotiations are being undertaken as part of a review with existing local authority users to determine whether it is viable to transfer the responsibility for maintaining hosting and license fees to a current user as a new host authority to enable taking this product forward. A small additional amount of seed funding will be offered to enable e-voice as a service to be transferred to the new host body and the services to continue.

PQ 4710 Mr Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton): To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many blogs by councillors and local government officers are registered on the ReadMyDay/Blog-in-a-Box platform sponsored by her Department; and if she will make a statement.

There are currently 166 councillors and 50 local government officers registered on the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform from a total of 93 local authorities.

Annex B

1. Local e-Democracy National Project Description

The Local e-Democracy National Project addressed how new technologies can change the way in which councils engage and work with citizens. E-Democracy focuses on the use of technology to encourage participation and strengthen the bonds between councillors, council officers and citizens.

The project aimed to give citizens and communities a better understanding of the democratic process. This will ensure citizens are more willing to initiate public engagement campaigns and participate in elections, strengthening the local democracy. It aimed to help councillors become more effective as managers of the council and representatives of their wards. The project aimed to ensure that councils became more transparent, accountable and auditable, making the inner workings of the council better understood and the democratic process easier to manage.

The project operated 5 workstreams. Each workstream was managed by a lead local authority with other local authorities and third party suppliers involved. The workstreams were as follows:

1. Developing the e-democracy environment: What is e-democracy and what will make it successful and sustainable? The lead authority for this workstream was North Lincolnshire.

2. Strengthening existing democratic practices: How can councils better interact with their citizens? This workstream was led by Wolverhampton.

3. Addressing the democratic deficit: How can communities better engage with their councils? North Lincolnshire and Lewisham led this workstream.

4. Evaluating e-democracy: What is happening now in e-democracy? This workstream was led by Bristol.

5. Project management and rollout: How can we make this relevant and useful for all local authorities? This workstream was led by St Albans.

The project commissioned and reviewed surveys and academic research to understand the state of e-democracy activity in the UK, the barriers to e-democracy and progress that has been made in this field. The project was active in the piloting of a selection of tools, approaches and methods available for engaging communities, citizens, councils and councillors with each other. The Local e-Democracy project looked at webcasts, blogs (web logging), text alerts, e-panels, e-consultation, committee information systems and online surgeries to see what works, what the benefits are and whether they should be replicated. Best practice guidelines, exemplar materials, case studies, software specifications, strategy guides, route maps and business case templates were developed.

The Local e-Democracy project ran two websites. www.e-dem.info as an internal site for the sharing of data. www.e-democracy.gov.uk was the external site for use by councils, councillors and citizens alike.

1.2 Description of Project Materials

As shown on the product catalogue, the Local e-Democracy National Project has produced 192 documents/outcomes. The majority of the outcomes are Word documents; however the Local e-Democracy project also developed open source software, content management systems, interactive toolkits, databases, PowerPoint documents and templates.

1.2.1 Workstream 1. Developing the e-democracy environment

1.2.1.1 e-Democracy toolkit - roadmap

The main product outcome of Workstream 1 was the e-Democracy toolkit. It was developed by Accenture, on behalf of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (“Hammersmith and Fulham”). The toolkit aimed to guide local authorities through the full Local e-Democracy project using a variety of different methods to locate information most relevant to the needs of each local authority. It consisted of a collection of route maps pulling the products into a logical sequence to allow a local authority to follow the implementation of e-Democracy from the initial business case to the final evaluation. The toolkit was an overarching product, which consisted of an accumulation of reports, guidance documents, templates and assessment tools.

Tagish have been commissioned to turn the toolkit into an online interactive version.

1.2.1.2 Business Case Builder / Business Planning Builder

These tools guide a local authority through a process map to establish a business case. The toolkit contains a draft business case, a guide to adapting the business case to local needs and presentation materials for discussing the business case with political and managerial teams. It was developed by De Montfort University (“De Montfort”) and used a third party contractor called Branded Spider to turn their various outputs into more interactive tools.

1.2.1.3 Debate Toolkit

This toolkit was developed by De Montfort. It supported the Business Case and contains PowerPoint materials to provoke debate and provide a framework for bringing together the different insights of each group.

1.2.1.4 Funding Database

The funding database was developed by Enterprise AB and sponsored by SOCITM. It is a database of funding sources with details and links to other sites. The aim of this database is to ease the searching process and ultimately to provide local authorities with suitable funding sources for e-Democracy projects.

1.2.1.5 Research, Guidance and Case Studies

De Montfort has undertaken research on the cultural and political barriers to e-democracy.

Steven Clift has compiled a number of case studies and briefs relating to international best practice for e-Democracy projects.

A case study database has been created using case studies created throughout the project - including case studies of the pilots within the National Project itself, a process which was managed by RSe Consulting.

1.2.2 Workstream 2. Strengthening existing democratic practices

1.2.2.1 National Councillor Website

This website provides details of all councillors in the UK. At Wolverhampton's request, LGA have developed this website which incorporates open source software. This allows e-mails sent from a citizen to their councillor directly from the website to be automatically categorised, leading to automated responses. The website also contains an administrative site (where councils can update the e-mail details of councillors) and an XML feed to authorised third parties.

In addition to the creation of the website, Leicester City Council (“Leicester”) and Councillor.info have carried out research into websites for Councillors. Leicester contracted separately with both Poptel and New Local Government Research Unit (“NLGRU”) for the provision of consultancy services.

1.2.2.2 Online Surgeries for councillors/MPs

Kingston upon Thames Council (“Kingston”) developed and piloted a chat room style online forum. This forum enabled young people to conduct secure and private online discussions with a variety of different local government representatives. Kingston worked with the Hansard Society to run the project and evaluate the results. In terms of documentation, training materials for councils and councillors have been created and the pilot has been evaluated and a report written on the lessons learned.

1.2.2.3 Transparency of Policy Making

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council ("Barnsley") and Esprit have developed and piloted a committee's information, decision tracking and reporting system. They created a “How to” Guide, Data Model and case study.

1.2.2.4 Panel, Forums and Engagement

Bristol developed and piloted an e-panel consultation. An e-panel is an interactive way to consult a wide range of citizens on important issues. It is based on a standalone website www.askbristol.com and uses discussion forums, surveys and live chats for members to discuss issues with experts and each other before giving their final views in polls and surveys. E-panel evaluation software was created by Community People Limited.

RBA Research Limited has evaluated the e-panel pilot. A report has been produced and a guide created for local authorities intending to set up and run an e-panel.

1.2.2.5 e-Petitioning

Kingston worked with Napier University's Teledemocracy Unit in the development and piloting an e-Petitioning application, which enables citizens to set up their own petitions and support petitions online. Process maps, data models and software specifications were created. Open source software has been used to create this product and an evaluation report and best practice guidelines have been written for authorities wishing to implement e-petitioning.

1.2.2.6 Development of Standards and Good Practice

Wolverhampton developed standards and good practice guidance for the online coordination of consultation and participation activity. Data structures and process maps for sharing information on consultation and participation were created alongside a technical report on interoperability standards and metadata standards.

Wolverhampton, Surrey and Reading Borough Council ("Reading") looked at best practice in engaging citizens in issues that cut across organisational boundaries. They created design guidelines, good practice guidance and have written a software report.

1.2.3 Workstream 3. Addressing the democratic deficit

1.2.3.1 Websites for 50+

Surrey developed website models, templates and open source polling software for websites that appeal to the older generations. The open source software is used for online polling and includes instant graphical feedback. XML templates, a demonstration website and a developer's road map have also been created.

In terms of additional documentation, a "lessons learned" report, specialist training material, a description of the technical architecture and the methodology for the website development have been written.

1.2.3.2 Voice of Youth

Surrey piloted a scheme using video kiosks and a website to encourage young people to participate in e-democracy. Again, open source software was used for online polling. An XML open source based content management system for managing videos was also created.

The Voice of Youth website contains a catalogue of cleared films which were produced by young people on subjects of importance to them. In terms of documentation, reports have been written on best practice and lessons learned, accessibility and specialist training. A best practice template, a toolkit for web developers and a model to present to external funding bodies to enable the expansion of the concept were created.

1.2.3.3 Citizenship Online Games

North Lincolnshire and Delib developed online and mobile phone games to explain and encourage participation in e-democracy. Three games were developed, Captain Campaign, Councillor Quest 2 and Money Manager and allowed local authorities to make them bespoke and linked to local landmarks. A report has been written detailing how to tailor the games for incorporation into other local authority websites.

1.2.3.4 E-Democracy Icons

North Lincolnshire has worked with Community Living developing a catalogue of sounds and symbols for words relating to democracy. These icons will help to make e-democracy websites easily accessible to all and were approved by the main disability organisations.

1.2.3.5 Kingston iCan

BBC iCan/Active worked with Kingston, St Albans and Stroud District Council ("Stroud") to develop the BBC iCan online communities democracy toolkit for local authorities to utilise via developed toolkits. Guidance, reports, an information toolkit and case studies have been developed for councils and councillors intending to implement the iCan tool.

1.2.3.6 Web Casting and Enhanced Web Casting

North Lincolnshire worked with UK Council trialling the use of a satellite van to take the web casting of council meetings out to the communities. Croydon and Lewisham also piloted web casting at council and community meetings. Reports, checklists, technical guides, training materials and final evaluations have been written. Stephen Clift and Publicis.net have produced an enhanced webcasting pilot.

The outputs of this project are a functional specification for enhanced webcasting and a “democaster” - essentially a demonstration model of what can be achieved by Local Authorities.

1.2.3.7 Blogging

North Lincolnshire worked with Stephen Clift in piloting the benefits of `blogging' by councillors. A template XML compliant web addition for a standard html website was created. In terms of documentation, a training package, recommendations report and a legislative guide discussing the permitted content of blogs and ramifications have been created.

1.2.3.8 Issues Forum

North Lincolnshire worked with e-Democracy.org to develop issue-based online discussion forums that allow citizens and officials to communicate on a wide range of local issues. Open source tools were developed to allow local authorities to implement a citizen's forum. A shared platform to run Issues Forums and a group server module that allows for the customisation of the user interface by local authorities have also been created. In terms of documentation, guidance has been written for the management of forums and their users and training materials have been written.

1.2.3.9 Educational Action Zone (“EAZ”) Project

Lewisham worked with local authority teachers to bring democracy direct to school children and their parents in order to encourage participation. This project has created a large amount of documentation including a collection of teaching resources for use as part of the citizenship curriculum, a collection of materials required to undertake a citizenship programme in local schools, a questionnaire toolkit to enable councils to develop their own questionnaire to establish pupils current level of democratic knowledge, and a collection of materials required to undertake a parent's outreach programme. The project also created a route map for local authorities wishing to implement wireless networks and a route map for implementing a parent's outreach programme.

1.2.3.10 Community Groups

Lewisham has investigated community, voluntary and faith organisations representing excluded and vulnerable groups in an attempt to encourage their involvement with local politics. Training materials, notes on the outcomes and issues that have arisen from the initial project scoping meeting, a list of equipment required to run sessions with community groups, a pilot evaluation and a report on implementation issues have been written. The pilot has also created a `metrics' questionnaire to help measure the baseline and impact of this work.

1.2.3.11 SMS Broadcasting

Southwark piloted text messaging and voice broadcasting services as a means of telling citizens about council activities. This pilot created documentation including a list of suppliers of SMS and voice broadcasting, a template for assessing suppliers, a help guide to establish localised SMS and voice broadcasting services and an evaluation of the pilots and details of lessons learned.

1.2.4 Workstream 4. What is happening now in e-democracy?

1.2.4.1 Self-evaluation Toolkit

This piece of work was led by Bristol. A team of academics created a toolkit for local authorities, which will include a model questionnaire for future self-evaluation of e-democracy. This toolkit allows each local authority to gauge interest and experience, and benchmark figures to enable comparisons.

1.2.4.2 Baseline Survey and Literature Review

Bristol and MORI have undertaken research into current e-democracy activity in UK local authorities. A questionnaire was sent to all local authorities and the results were collated. A written report was then produced with geographical mapping and analysis relating to the status and progress of e-democracy. They have also undertaken research into e-democracy literature and have created a document which summaries the reports relating to e-democracy, aiming to identify common themes and lessons from local e-democracy.

1.2.4.3 Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation

Bristol completed a series of project evaluations. Reports on the findings have been written and research reports citing e.g. methodology have been written to enable others to update the research.

We were informed that academic institutions, including Napier University and Oxford Internet Institute, were used to complete the work undertaken in Workstream 4.

1.2.5 Workstream 5. How can we make this relevant and useful for all Local Authorities?

1.2.5.1 Local e-Democracy National Project Portal

St Albans commissioned and led on the development of the Local e-Democracy website. The website will be used to disseminate the project findings, developments and products to local authorities.

St Albans used (a) Tagish Limited to develop an internet/intranet installation and a Local e-Democracy national project portal using Tagish's iSiteSQL software under licence; and (b) Hedra Limited to supply the development, building and hosting of the Local e-Democracy National Project Website.

1.2.5.2 Literature and Media

St Albans commissioned and developed a range of literature to help disseminate the project's messages and outcomes to local authorities. They also commissioned and developed a media campaign to raise awareness of the project's aims and achievements. St Albans have worked with Upward Curve in relation to media relations, and with Galmore for the work done around branding and logos.

Annex C

VOICE Review

Briefing paper for CLG

Version 3: 18/07/2008

Contents

1 Executive Summary

2 Introduction

Background

VOICE is an online community platform developed in 2005 in order to:

A large amount of investment has gone into the development and implementation of VOICE over the past few years and therefore the product contains a wealth of knowledge, best practices and ideas that have been gained from partnerships with:

Current Status

The VOICE product was given to ICELE in 2006 to help form part of their future sustainability plan. It was envisaged that after the breakeven point all profits would be fed in to the Centre.

Due to a number of reasons including staff skills and resources the Centre was not able to effectively deploy VOICE. ICELE is scheduled for closure at the end of July 2008 and CLG now need to make a decision on the future of VOICE.

Review Purpose

The purpose of this review document is to provide CLG civil servants with data and information to enable them to make a decision on the future of the VOICE platform.

The key aims of the review are to understand:

The report is intended to supplement the findings from previous independent evaluations of VOICE.

3 Financial Viability

To determine the financial viability of the VOICE product it's important to understand the current income and expenditure costs as well as projected figures for the next three years.

Income

VOICE uses a three tier subscription model to generate revenue:

The table below highlights the income for VOICE during the previous year. It is important to note that VOICE was not being marketed during this period.

Table 1: Current income for the VOICE project

In addition to income, VOICE holds value in its hardware assets detailed in the Appendix at the end of this document.

Expenditure

The balance sheet overleaf shows the current expenditure and income for VOICE in the current fiscal year.

Table 2: Current balance sheet for the VOICE project

Findings

The financial information demonstrates;

4 User Base

User and Support Base

Local Authorities using the VOICE Platform and derivatives:

 Government Programmes:

 Other Agencies:

 Voluntary Sector Umbrella Organisations:

Significantly, communities include local government project implementations such as:

Community Users

The table below shows the number of community groups using VOICE and its derivatives as categorised by the communities themselves. Please note that individual communities may select multiple classifications.

The data clearly shows that the largest users of VOICE are:

Community User Growth

The table below shows the indicative growth of the number of communities to be using the VOICE site since its' launch in December 2006.

The fastest growing community areas to be using VOICE are:

5 Use of VOICE

The table below highlights the growing number of members and communities using all the directly provided VOICE services, excluding the platform every month. These figures would rise drastically when new councils subscribe or transfer formally to the VOICE services platform.

It's clear to see:

Visitors

In addition to understanding the numbers and types of communities using VOICE it is also important to look at the number of individuals visiting and using the sites.

The data demonstrates that

Modules

The following graph shows the popularity of modules being used by communities in the VOICE system:-

The most popular modules are:

These figures are significantly increased when all those using the VOICE platform are applied and increase several times over. The exact figures for all users of the VOICE platform are currently not available.

Bandwidth

The VOICE hosting arrangements are based on 2Mbps premium bandwidth, burstable to 100Mbps. Bandwidth is calculated on the 95^th percentile.

The size was around 1.5Mps in March 2008, still below the current VOICE allowance. Extra bandwidth can be purchased at a unit cost of £45 per Mbps.

The hosting package includes 300GB of Network Attached Storage. At present there is no cap on storage.

6 Impact Assessment

As part of the high level evaluation, it is important to assess the impact of closing VOICE on key Stakeholders.

The impact assessment shows that:

7 Business Model

ICELE has a firm belief that VOICE is a significant resource for local government and communities. It has the potential to facilitate a number of future mandatory outcomes and is well placed to help meet the objectives set by the recent CLG White Paper.

VOICE has strategic value to help achieve aims around the following policies;

Below are just a few examples of possible expansion areas that ICELE would like to take forward.

Appendix 1: Hardware Assets

Table 1: List of hardware assets procured by the project

Hardware remote login details

There are 5 servers, which you can “ssh” to at the addresses:

nr01.xarg.co.uk   (database server, backup file server)

nr02.xarg.co.uk   (file server, backup database server)

nr03.xarg.co.uk   (web server)

nr04.xarg.co.uk   (web server)

nr05.xarg.co.uk   (web server)

Annex D

1.3 Description of ICELE Materials

1.3.1 The ICELE Website

1.3.1.1 Site Content

The content of the ICELE website is a combination of newly keyed information, supplier submitted material and the Local eDemocracy National Project archive. The URL (www.icele.org) is also property of the centre.

Special attention should be paid to the following products which reside solely on the website:-

1.3.1.2 People Finder

The `people finder' tool was developed by Lichfield District Council with programme money. This is bespoke and relies on the JADU content management system. The content therein is provided by individuals and as such data protection issues must be adhered-to.

1.3.2 Webcastguide (www.webcastguide.co.uk)

1.3.2.1 Site Content

Webcastguide was build by North Lincolnshire Council from paper based deliverables commissioned by ICELE to Public-I and Westminster Digital. It is currently hosted by North Lincolnshire Council.

1.3.2.2 Interactive Business Case

The `guide' is an interactive part of webcastguide and the main product of the website.

1.3.3 PicturePoll (www.picturepoll.org)

1.3.3.1 Poll visualisation technology

Picture Poll was developed by Delib for North Lincolnshire Council. The IPR is jointly owned.

1.3.4 VOICE (www.e-voice.org.uk)

1.3.4.1 VOICE Technology portal

VOICE is built on open-source software called `dotCommunity'. As such there is no IPR ownership although the VOICE installation is a bespoke deployment of dotCommunity and as such there is concept IPR.

1.3.4.2 VOICE Toolkit

The VOICE toolkit (manuals, help texts and voice community pages) were created by ICELE and IPR remains with the centre.

1.3.4.3 Community Templates

A series of community templates were commissioned by ICELE and remain the property of the centre although can be used freely.

1.3.5 ICELE Guides

1.3.5.1 Guidebooks

The guides were created through material commissioned by ICELE or recycled material from the Local eDemocracy National Project. The guides are as follows:-

1.3.6 Bloginabox

1.3.6.1 Site Content

Site content, in particular the guidance and logo plus user templates (CSS), were commissioned by ICELE and IPR remains with the centre.

1.3.6.2 Technology platform

No part of the technology platform is owned by ICELE. However, we have a contractual agreement with the technology provider that reseller fees can be applied to duplicate deployments.

1.3.7 Learning Pool

1.3.7.1 eLearning Module

The eLearning Module on eDemocracy is jointly owned with Learning Pool. A revamped version was made (unreleased) based on knowledge from ICELE; this has the same arrangement on IPR.

1.3.8 Evaluation Toolkit (CAHDE)

1.3.9 Regional Work

1.3.9.1 Evaluation of Blogs in the West Midlands

As described

1.3.9.2 Evaluation of Blogs in London

As described

22 July 2008 : Column 1156W

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what budget her Department has allocated to the Read My Day/BloginaBox platform for each of the next three financial years; and if she will make a statement. [220194]

Mr. Dhanda: The Department has agreed to provide funding of £10,590 to provide the required resources for the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform to operate until October 2011.

The Department will be communicating with all users on the platform to inform them of the decision and to encourage the establishment of a user group to seek how the platform can be made sustainable beyond this date. It is hoped that this seed funding will provide the opportunity for users to take control of this important asset and secure its future for them and other civic leaders.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many visits have been made to the International Centre of Excellence for Local e-Democracy website since its launch; and if she will make a statement. [220195]

Mr. Dhanda: Since the launch of the ICELE website in October 2006 there have been over 750,000 visits. In the last six full months to 30 June 2008, approximately 300,000 visits have been recorded.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what plans her Department has to maintain and promote the resources and toolkits developed by the International Centre for Excellence for Local e-Democracy; and if she will make a statement. [220196]

Mr. Dhanda: A review is currently being conducted by the Department and the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy to establish the current content and web traffic to the site. We are keen to retain the resources and toolkits developed by the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy and the previous Local e-Democracy National Project incorporated into it.

The Department is exploring the options currently available including the use existing web resources to promote the empowerment agenda.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many community groups have created websites using the Voice platform sponsored by her Department since the platform was launched; and if she will make a statement. [220286]

Mr. Dhanda: There are currently 3,362 community groups who have created websites and are registered on the VOICE site or using its open source derivatives.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much funding her Department has given to the International Centre for Excellence for Local e-Democracy to support the Voice platform; and if she will make a statement. [220287]

Mr. Dhanda: The Voice platform has been constructed from an amalgam of different national projects and partnerships within the Local e-Government Programme which ran from 2002 to 2006.

Funding directly attributable to the product was for £3,500,000 for the Environment and Community Online Residents e-Services (ENCORE) National Project, £350,000 for the Local Directgov Neighbourhoods and Parish Councils Project and £234,000 allocated to International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy for further development and coding issues.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what budget allocation her Department has made for the maintenance of the Voice platform for each of the next two financial years. [220288]

Mr. Dhanda: The Voice platform is fully funded up to April 2009 using existing resources allocated to the International centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) and thus fulfilling current subscriptions to the service.

The Voice platform is almost self-sufficient via local authority and voluntary organisation subscriptions. Negotiations are being undertaken as part of a review with existing local authority users to determine whether it is viable to transfer the responsibility for maintaining hosting and license fees to a current user as a new host authority to enable taking this product forward. A small additional amount of seed funding will be offered to enable e-voice as a service to be transferred to the new host body and the services to continue.

Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many blogs by councillors and local government officers are registered on the ReadMyDay/Blog-in-a-Box platform sponsored by her Department; and if she will make a statement. [220289]

Mr. Dhanda: There are currently 166 councillors and 50 local government officers registered on the ReadmyDay/BloginaBox platform from a total of 93 local authorities.

Future of the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE)

Summary

Timing

Recommendation

Background

Figure 1: History to the setting up of ICELE

         ICELE website (www.icele.org) - portal to promote news, tools and learning materials from the local e-Government programme and other sectors - approximately 43,000 hits per month.

        VOICE - national community portal offering content management and other benefits. This is currently in use at a number of locations including Birmingham City Council, North Lincolnshire Council, London Communities Policing Partnership, CLG and MoJ.

        e-Petitions - online tool successfully adopted by Bristol City Council, Kingston-upon-Thames and the South Yorkshire. ICELE provides guides, practical training and events.

        Blogging - ICELE provides a free blogging platform for civic leaders with linked database of users and a training module for locally elected representatives - over 150 local councillors using the service.

       Webcasting - used by a large number of councils to broadcast coverage of their meetings/proceedings. ICELE provides free guides and advice.

        Support and organisation to councils via regional work such as North East Connects “Changing the Role of the Frontline Councillor” programme

         Councillor Websites: Since 2005, all elected representatives (over 20,000) now have their own website. ICELE provides training for councillors to manage their own website.

In addition, ICELE acts as the portal for all information produced by CLG sponsored activity on local e-democracy/e-participation and international case studies through their award winning website. This includes projects such as:

Evaluation of ICELE

Future Options

Consideration

Finance

Communications

Legal

Copies:

Hazel Blears

Yvette Cooper

John Healey

Iain Wright

Baroness Andrews

Peter Housden

Joe Montgomery

Chris Wormald

Edna Robinson

Andrew Campbell

David Rossington

John Shield

Deb Heenan

Stuart Hoggan

Andrea Ledward

Henry Tam

Bert Provan

Peter Blair

Neil Reeder

Iain Sear

Jaime Rose

Alasdair Frew

Jessica Bray

Heather Monroe

Sarah Southerton

Simon Berry

Emma Hagan

Special Advisers (DCLG)