London Region ICT Champion

The London Region ICT Champion’s mission is to support voluntary sector organisations to understand and use technology to better achieve their goal of delivering high quality services for all.

Why London needs an ICT Champion

The need for a London Region ICT Champion project was identified in the London Infrastructure Development Plan as research from Lasa and many others shows that London’s voluntary and community sector organisations (VCOs) are failing to exploit ICT to its full potential, hindering their ability to acheive their goals and deliver value to stakeholders.

London’s voluntary sector is also incredibly diverse and numerous. Some facts from the London Infrastructure Development Plan give an idea of the scale of the challenge we face in building ICT capacity.

• 40,000 VCOs
• 300,000 employees
• £4 billion earned income

Briefly, the London Infrastructure plan identifies the following priorities for capacity building voluntary sector ICT in London:

• ensuring that the London VCS uses ICT to its full potential and has access to appropriate support
• co-ordinating ICT initiatives across London, evaluating outcome and informing future planning and development
• building the profile of the London VCS ICT project regionally and nationally
• supporting the sustainability of ICT projects in sub-regions

What does the London ICT Champion do?

• Publish and develop with stakeholders a strategy to capacity build the ICT of London’s voluntary sector;
• Pump-prime development in areas with identified gaps;
• Facilitate exchange visits of good practice between organisations in the London region;
• Open a dialogue with funders and policy-makers that ICT is a legitimate cost of doing business for VCOs and should be recognised as such;
• Establish and develop a London network of circuit riders (mobile support workers) to share and develop best practice;
• Promote new technologies to aid collaboration and partnerships between VCOs;
• Access regional funding and resources;

Funding

The London Region ICT Champion is a Consortia Project funded by Capacity Builders from October 2006 to March 2008. Capacity builders is a new agency with responsibility to manage the £70 million ChangeUp programme for the financial years 2006/07 and 2007/08.

For more information on other Consortia Projects funded by Capacity Builders in London, click here.

ChangeUp
ChangeUp is a programme of capacity building for the infrastructure of the voluntary and community sector, developed in response to HM Treasury’s 2002 “Cross Cutting Review of the Role of the Voluntary and Community Sector in Service Delivery”.

ChangeUp’s aim is that by 2014 the needs of frontline voluntary and community organisations in England will be met by support which is:

• available nationwide
• structured for maximum efficiency
• offering excellent provision
• accessible to all
• truly reflecting and promoting diversity
• sustainably funded

ChangeUp describes the basic architecture of support which frontline organisations need as agreed with the voluntary and community sector (VCS).

ChangeUp and ICT
The Home Office report “ChangeUp: Capacity Building and Infrastructure Framework for the Voluntary and Community Sector (2004)” summarised the sector’s main problems in effectively using ICT as follows:

• A lack of strategic understanding of how ICT can benefit organisations
• Difficulties in accessing advice, information and support that is affordable, reliable, and relevant to the sector; and
• A lack of understanding of the full costs of ICT with a corresponding reluctance by funders to meet those costs.

The report then went on to propose a national ICT Hub, which is already providing the voluntary sector with leadership and guidance on ICT good practice at a national level. Whilst the ICT Hub is influencing debate at a national level, the ICT Champion aims to give London’s voluntary sector a voice.

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