In May we covered the first ever Ufi/public libraries conference.
In this follow-up piece, Ufi’s Chief Executive Sarah Jones explains its plans for developing the UK Online centre network and the advantages of a partnership with public libraries.
Ufi’s vision for UK Online centres is, put simply, to encourage more people into the centres to access information, learn new skills and use e-government services.
Ufi sees the development of UK Online centres, around half of which are found in libraries, as vital to the success of the government’s plans to make all government services accessible online and to improve the skills of the workforce. Both these aims have the potential to make a huge impact on the lives of individuals, families and local communities, as well as businesses.
Those familiar with the government’s vision for public libraries, Framework for the Future, will be aware that this dual mission to promote e-learning and e-government dovetails with the recommendations for the public libraries network to promote reading and informal learning and offer access to digital skills and services. The partnership with UK Online centres also enhances libraries’ ability to achieve the third strand of their mission – to tackle social exclusion, build community identity and develop citizenship. UK Online centres have a proven track record in engaging the hard-to-reach, not only because of their location at the heart of communities, but because of the access to new technology, available in a supportive environment, and their informal approach.
However, universal access to e-services and e-learning opportunities is not achievable while people do not have equal access to new technology and all its benefits. The digital divide still exists, and as long as this is the case UK Online centres will continue to be – for a significant proportion of the population – either the only or the most convenient route to accessing an increasingly important slice of 21st-century life.
Take e-government services for example. With a self-imposed 31 December 2005 deadline for online service delivery looming, and a substantial investment already made in making a range of government services available online, the stakes are high. Mass participation is essential if the country is to see the promised cost savings resulting from e-service delivery and if a truly citizen-centred approach is to be achieved. Only one in two adults currently accesses the internet. How can the remaining 50 per cent be encouraged to use e-government services?
Those most likely to be digitally excluded are from lower income groups or people with no or few qualifications – therefore those most likely to need Jobseekers Allowance, incapacity benefits, pension services and health information. With this in mind, the case for universal IT access, whether at home, at work or via a community resource, becomes even stronger.
Recent research, commissioned jointly by Ufi and the Department for Education and Skills, shows that the 6,000-strong UK Online centre network has the potential to dramatically increase take-up of e-government services among substantial numbers of society’s most disadvantaged groups. Key findings of a pathfinder project conducted in 2004, together with research completed by Mori, show that:
- 90 per cent of UK Online centres are willing and able to provide learning, access and support for delivery of online government services
- 34 per cent of the general population say that they would use, or would learn how to use, online services at a centre
- 86 per cent of existing UK Online centre users claim they would use a ‘one-stop’ government website at their local UK Online centre or learn how to use it at the centre and then access it somewhere else.
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E-government services at Leeds: a success story
Since April 2005 the network of 55 public libraries in Leeds has been involved in a UK Online project to promote local council services. Working in partnership with the city council’s ‘One-Stop Centres’, libraries have been encouraging their users to get online and visit www.leeds.gov.uk.
Library staff have been extensively trained to deliver special ICT and e-citizenship sessions and to familiarise themselves with the information held on the website. Specific groups have been targeted, for example parents and carers and the over-50s. Though some complex enquiries still need to be dealt with in person at the One-Stop Centres, many people can receive answers instantly by logging on to www.leeds.gov.uk.
Rather than driving unwilling residents online, the project aims to offer them choice as to how they access Leeds City Council information. Jason Tutin, Leeds Library Learning Co-ordinator, explains:
‘We aim to help our customers make an informed decision on how they’ll interact with the local authority. They can still talk face to face with a member of staff, but have also been empowered to access the information through a new channel in their local library.’
It has also benefited the library service itself – users say they see it as something extra the library has to offer which makes their lives easier.
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Over the course of the pathfinder project, more than 3,600 new users were introduced to e-government services through UK Online centres. Extrapolating this figure across the entire UK Online centre network suggests there is potential to deliver more than one million new users of e-government services over the course of a year. Many of these users would be supported by the public library network through UK Online centre staff.
Bearing in mind Framework for the Future’s national steer to libraries to provide their users with access to e-government services, the research’s indication of the scope of UK Online centres, and therefore of libraries, to realise this government promise is gratifying.
Promoting learning
The UK Online strategy also recognises the critical role that the centres, including libraries, have to play in spreading the learning net more widely, by engaging socially-excluded groups and providing a friendly and informal environment in which to acquire new skills.
This is not a new brief. Since Ufi took over the management of UK Online centres in 2003 it has been working to encourage centre users who have Skills for Life needs to take the first step back into learning. The identification of potential learners continues, but Ufi now sees this as a key area of growth and aspiration for the organisation – a way in which the contribution of UK Online can be quantified. By January this year, 19 per cent of UK Online users had taken up further learning with other providers, including Learndirect. By 2010 Ufi wants to increase UK Online referrals to the post-16 learning sector to 30 per cent.
To do this Ufi has developed a new and tailored tool to engage potential learners, available to all libraries for free, called First Time Online. Ufi’s experience with Learndirect learners shows that learners are more willing to admit to not knowing about computers than they are to struggling with literacy or numeracy. Designed with ICT as the ‘learning hook’, First Time Online primarily targets those who need to update their ICT skills, but its secondary aim is to give this group the confidence to tackle skills gaps in other areas.
First Time Online consists of a custom-built taster package enabling learners to acquire and try out basic ICT skills, an ICT skills check called the e-skills passport and a Learndirect initial assessment which looks at literacy and numeracy skills. It also offers information, advice and guidance to help learners move on, based on their interests, needs, assessment results and preferred methods of learning. Ufi is also providing free training to library centre staff on supporting users with Skills for Life needs.
The learner benefits from First Time Online because it provides an easy, non-threatening route back into learning, allows the centre to identify a range of learning needs and is designed to build confidence and self-esteem. UK Online centres, and therefore libraries, benefit from First Time Online because it is designed exclusively for their use and adds a professional tool to engage learners, available free of charge, to the pool of resources on hand to centre staff.
Its aim – to get more people learning – should create a flow of UK Online centre users ready to progress to further learning with a whole range of post-16 learning providers, including but not exclusively local Learndirect centres. The eventual knock-on effect this uptake in learning could have on the skills of the current and future workforce is considerable, placing UK Online centres and libraries at the heart of the government’s skills strategy.
Benefits of partnership
Libraries and UK Online centres have much to gain from a co-ordinated approach to encouraging greater participation in learning and e-government services. Sharing resources, good practice and audiences makes sense and should offer new opportunities and perhaps enhance performance on key individual targets.
A joint approach also benefits the thousands of people who use libraries and UK Online centres every week. However, unless we join forces to promote the advantages of this partnership for both citizens and government it is likely that the potential of this substantial network will remain untapped.
The research mentioned earlier highlighted that government departments benefit from working directly with UK Online centres. The combined network offers the government access to socially-excluded groups who are likely to be ‘turned off’ by more formal interaction with government. The complementary nature of UK Online centres and libraries means that by working together they attract new and different audiences – those who see libraries as just about books may be tempted to walk through the door because of an interest in new technology, while those for whom the internet is unappealing may be drawn in and reassured by the centres’ location in libraries. It can also help join up nationally provided government services with local initiatives. In a political climate of increasing scrutiny over the spending of public funds and of negative publicity over dwindling library use, it makes sense for government not to re-invent the wheel but to use established infrastructures to achieve its aims.
I hope that this is just the beginning of a new era in which Ufi and the public library system will work in partnership to promote initiatives, collate evidence and lobby on the network’s achievements to demonstrate its current and potential future contribution. By working together we can achieve so much more than if we approach the challenges of our targets and remit from government alone.
Sarah Jones is Chief Executive of Ufi.
For further information on UK Online’s work with libraries, contact Peter Farrell (pfarrell@ufi.com).
Updated: 12 November 2008