Why bother with the Internet?
The Government has set targets for all public
services to be available online within five years, and
has committed about £300 million pounds of capital
and revenue to establishing or rebranding 6,000 UK online
centres - places where people can learn about how to
use computers and the Internet. This is in addition
to the billions invested in public services and commercial
development - e-government and ecommerce. But will it
really matter if residents are not using the Internet,
and housing associations lag behind other organisations?
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Online facilities could be important in delivering
services, improving resident participation, supporting
community development and offering personal learning
opportunities to residents.
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Possible benefits have to be set again costs, difficulties
in setting up systems and questions of how far housing
associations should be in the technology business.
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The challenge is to find where residents and landlord
agendas overlap - and ensure that residents are
not disadvantaged through restrictions on Internet
use or withdrawal of other services.
We looked at the issue of 'why' from two perspectives
with Martyn Pearl, who has conducted research in the
field, most recently for the Housing Corporation's Remote
Control project. We looked at what is happening generally
in civic and community use of the Internet, and we built
on Martyn's research through workshops with residents
and housing association staff. Fuller reports are available
on our website.
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