STRATEGIES FOR JOBS IN THE INFORMATION
SOCIETY
(21001)
6193/00
COM(00) 48
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Commission Communication: Strategies for jobs in the Information
Society.
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| Legal base: |
— |
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| Document originated:
| 4 February 2000 |
| Forwarded to the Council:
| 7 February 2000 |
| Deposited in Parliament:
| 23 February 2000 |
| Department: |
Trade and Industry |
| Basis of consideration:
| EM of 10 March 2000 |
| Previous Committee Report:
| None |
| Discussed in Council:
| Special European Council 23-24 March 2000
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| Committee's assessment:
| Politically important |
| Committee's decision:
| Not cleared; further information requested
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The Commission's aims
10.1 This document was prepared for the
Special European Council on Employment, Economic Reform and
Social Cohesion — Towards a Europe based on Innovation and
Knowledge, in Lisbon on 23-24 March 2000. The Commission describes
it as serving as an important contribution to, and support for,
the eEurope initiative which is designed to enhance Europe's
readiness for the digital era.[35]
It sees the report as widening the perspective from job opportunities
to job strategies, building on successful initiatives in Member
States and stressing the strong linkage between enhancing Europe's
response to the Information Society and fostering employment in
Europe.
The report
10.2 The Commission provides a number of
statistics to support its identification of weaknesses in exploitation
of the Internet in the EU, where the penetration rate is still
only one third of that of the United States. Most of these weaknesses
are already well known, such as the short average time spent on-line
in the EU. It also notes that there has been a rapid increase
in demand for highly skilled employees in the telecommunications,
software and services sectors. It forecasts that the shortfall
of IT specialists in western Europe could reach 1.6 million by
2002. The Commission reports that the vast majority of big European
companies feel impeded by the lack of skills and that the shortage
is even more serious for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
10.3 By comparison with the United States,
the Commission says that investment in early stage technology
is still much more limited in Europe, though European information
and communication technologies (ICTs) have benefited from growing
investment and this is now the largest sector for venture capitalists.
10.4 Looking ahead to the opportunities
and challenges presented by the Information Society, the Commission
suggests that by 2010 half of all jobs will be in industries that
are either major producers or intensive users of information technology
products and services.
10.5 In the four main areas examined —
learning, working, Public Services and enterprises —
the paper provides examples of best practice across the EU.
These include:
- a partnership set up by the Federal Government
in Germany with Deutsche Telecom to link 8000 schools to the Internet,
co-funded at regional level, and the UK's National Grid for Learning.
In Portugal, a similar programme has connected all 5-12 Grade
schools to the Internet, as well as to all public libraries;
- the use of the European Computer Driving Licence
(ECDL), a standardised and recognised certification of competence
which is a useful tool for businesses, educational bodies and
the voluntary sector to establish computer literacy. Den Danske
Bank has agreed to give a computer at a much reduced price to
any of its 14,000 staff who pass at least four of the seven modules
of the ECDL within one year;
- Portuguese citizens can deal with the Government
via e-mail and over 100 administrative procedures, such as issuing
driving licences and registering births, can be done on-line;
- the Greek Ministry of Finance is pilot-testing
a system of electronic filing, processing and payment of quarterly
VAT tax forms.
10.6 The paper concludes by setting out
18 recommendations within the four main areas and suggests target
dates, linked to indicators for measuring success rates. For instance,
under the heading of Learning in the Information Society,
it suggests that the Member States should support content development
networks in the educational sector. The target date is end 2002
and the indicator would be the rate of growth of content development
networks.
10.7 The recommendations are summarised
by the Commission as follows:
Learning (all by end 2002)
- link every school to the Internet
- increase multimedia capability of school PCs
- ensure teachers' competence in information society
(IS) skills
- develop the capability to integrate IS tools
in education
- support IS tools and multimedia integration within
curricula through public private partnerships
- support content development networks in the educational
sector
Working
- provide all workers with the opportunity to achieve
IS literacy (end 2003)
- create conditions for teleworking to take place
on wide scale (end 2000)
- increase uptake and capacity of third level education
(end 2003)
- promote IT courses at second level including
industry-certified training (from 2000)
- ensure that user-friendly standards are employed
to improve the employability of people with disabilities (from
2000)
Public Services
- set up pages providing information about civil
rights and linking to relevant public services (end 2000)
- make electronically accessible all public services
capable of this (end 2004)
- provide one-stop Internet shop for businesses
(end 2000)
- set up public Internet access points, also offering
training (end 2001)
Enterprise
- encourage entrepreneurship through fiscal policies
(end 2000)
- enhance industry-research collaboration (2002)
- mainstream the IS needs of SMEs in public programmes
(from 2000)
- diffuse best practice and benchmark use of ICT
by companies (end 2002)
The Government's view
10.8 The Minister for Small Business and
E-Commerce (Ms Patricia Hewitt) says that the Government can support
the general thrust of the Communication, but that its chief concern
is that this risks encouraging a proliferation of Internet-related
targets, because it covers areas which are also the subject of
targets in the eEurope initiative. The Government believes
that the eEurope strategy would develop more strongly if:
"... the Commission
were to give more attention initially to the three areas which
are fundamental, namely reducing Internet access costs; accelerating
e-commerce, mainly through completing the legal framework; and
ensuring a good level of skills. Early progress in these areas
is essential to provide a strong foundation for the other matters
covered in these Communications. The Learning and Working elements
of the present Communication add detail to what is already in
eEurope on skills for pupils, businesses, citizens and
others. The Enterprise and Public Services elements also add targets
and detail to eEurope, but may make it more difficult to
achieve an overall approach that has consistency and impact."
10.9 However, the Minister says:
"... although this Communication
was intended to complement eEurope, the two have targets
which may contradict one another. For example, eEurope
aims that all schools be on-line by the end of 2001, while this
Communication states a target of end of 2002. As the initiative
develops, there may be an increasing need to ensure coherence,
so that the Commission and Member States do not sign up to differing
targets for the same action. It may also be necessary to ensure
that the targets are more appropriate and demanding: for example,
achieving a given ratio of PCs/pupil may be more suitable than
linking every school to the Internet."
Conclusion
10.10 Whilst the examples of best practice
in the Communication are interesting, we see little real value
in the rest of this paper and its exhortations. The Minister's
analysis of what is required of Member States is, in our view,
more penetrating.
10.11 We have invited the Minister to
give oral evidence to us, when we hope to hear from the Minister
what contribution the Commission has been able to make to and
what has been included in the Action Plan on the eEurope initiative.
Meanwhile, we do not clear this document, but ask the Minister
to highlight for us any significant agreement reached at the Special
European Council on the ingredients of the eEurope initiative
Action Plan.
35 (20858) 14205/99; see HC 23-viii (1999-2000), paragraph
7 (9 February 2000). Back
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