3.35 In Germany the Council for Research, Technology and Innovation
has been charged with the task of providing a comprehensive overview
of applications, problem areas and spheres of activity in important
fields of innovation and with making recommendations for action.
Its deliberations take place on an inter-disciplinary and interdepartmental
basis. The Federal Ministers for Research and Technology, for
Economics and for Education and Science are permanent members.
The Council met for the first time on 22 March 1995, when it
was decided that "The Information Society" should be
the first topic to be handled. Work included three working groups
on "Research, Technology, Applications", "Legal
Framework" and "Social and Cultural Challenges",
and the Council reported in December 1995.
3.36 The Council's Report, The Information Society: Opportunities,
Innovations and Challenges,[27] identified the following application
fields as requiring particularly urgent action:
-- industry and the service sector: an increase in productivity,
-- private households: meeting the communication needs
of the public; making access to information easier for everybody,
-- education: creating powerful telesystems and software
for research and education,
-- public administration: increasing efficiency, flexibility
and user-friendliness of services,
-- telemedicine: improving health care including preventive
health care, and
-- telematics for traffic control: guaranteeing mobility
by ensuring a safe, economical and environmentally-friendly flow
of traffic.
3.37 In private households in Germany there are some 15 million
cable TV connections and 8 million satellite receivers. In addition
there are already more than 6 million PCs, but only about one
million are attached to a telecommunications network. The report
suggested that "private households can be the training ground
for the information and communication technologies that will be
required as interactive services in telecommuting and in telecooperation
at work."[28] In discussing the possible benefits of "telecommuting",
which it is estimated will affect 800,000 jobs after the year
2000, the report suggests that "on an overall economic and
ecological scale, 800,000 telecommuters would mean a substantial
reduction of road traffic (by saving around 3.2 billion motor
vehicle-km per year)."[29]
3.38 The report emphasised the importance of educational applications.
"The education sector ... has the task of preparing people
for life with the new technologies and to provide individuals
with the skill to handle these media thus enabling them to work
with the new plethora of information originating from many different
cultures in an active and responsible way. The competitiveness
of Germany ultimately depends on how quickly and how effectively
the separate institutions within the education system are enabled
to meet these challenges." The report found that "in
Germany the relevant technology and infrastructure (such as high-speed
networks) is not as highly developed as in the USA and many neighbouring
European countries, such as the Netherlands and the UK ... Germany's
current deficit as regards the relevant infrastructure and provision
of education institutions with the new information and communication
technologies must be remedied quickly".[30]
THE UNITED KINGDOM
3.39 In the United Kingdom, as in Sweden and Finland, the telecommunications
market has been liberalised for several years.[31] According to the
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Government's lead
department in this field, the Information Society is already big
business in the United Kingdom.
-- "In 1995, the UK's cable companies alone invested
more than £2 billion - that's £6 million a day - in
developing infrastructure.
-- BT has announced a 10 year programme of work to install
fibre-optic cabling to bring interactive multimedia services into
homes nationwide.
-- Nearly 3 million personal computers were sold in the
UK in 1995.
-- Over 2 million people in the UK accessed the Internet
in the year to August 1995.
-- And the total market for information and communication
technologies in the UK has been estimated at £48 billion
per annum."[32]
3.40 The Government has a number of advisory committees to provide
advice on policy making in this area, in particular, the DTI's
Multimedia Industry Advisory Group, established in 1994. The
term "Multimedia" is slightly misleading in this context,
as their interest is far broader than the technology traditionally
associated with multimedia, i.e., CD ROM, CD-I[33] and other stand
alone discs for delivering a mixture of text graphics and audio
to a PC. These advisory committees have submitted reports on
intellectual property issues, interoperability standards and on
opportunities in health and education. The Government's Technology
Foresight Programme[34] brings together industry, academics and government
in a collaborative effort to identify opportunities in technologies
and markets likely to emerge in the next 20 years. Fifteen Technology
Foresight Panels have delivered reports on various sectors and
the Programme offers funding for innovative industry/academic
joint proposals.
3.41 The Information Society Initiative (ISI)[35] was launched by
the DTI on 13 February 1996. This is "a four-year programme
in which up to £35 million of new money will be invested.
It will help United Kingdom businesses to take full advantage
of the opportunities offered by new information and communication
technologies to boost their competitiveness. This new framework
of support and awareness programmes is a partnership between industry
and Government, addressed at all who work in manufacturing, service
and creative sectors-- particularly small and medium sized
companies."[36]; This support will be delivered locally, using
50 local support centres, and through professional and trade associations,
and the DTI has produced clear, helpful, and jargon-free literature
to promote the initiative. There is also funding available for
developing a test bed in digital broadcasting, and other promising
areas of technology, such as Virtual Reality, microelectronics
design, and bar coding systems are being considered for special
funding. Other programmes promote electronic commerce, multimedia
in music, neural computing, electronic networking for business
intermediaries, and electronic networking for small businesses.
At present, the ISI has a heavy emphasis on assisting SMEs, but
the longer term plans include studies on, and promotional activities
for society as a whole.
3.42 A small Central Information Technology Unit (CITU) was set
up by the Deputy Prime Minister in November 1995. CITU's mission
is: "To devise a set of strategies and policies which will
enable Government to exploit the opportunities provided by information
and communications technology in order to provide simple to use,
integrated and rationalised services, which are tailored to the
needs of businesses and the citizen, and are easily accessible
when and where required". A Cabinet Office Press Release[37]
announced that "The CITU will take a strategic view of the
way IT is used across government, and will ensure that the opportunities
IT offers are exploited to maximise efficiency within government
and in its dealings with businesses and the citizen. It will
also be responsible for ensuring that the Private Finance Initiative
(PFI) is used to the full in funding Government IT projects".
3.43 In February 1996 the Prime Minister set up a Ministerial
Group on IT, under the Chairmanship of the Deputy Prime Minister.
On 3 June he was replaced as Chairman by the Lord Privy Seal,
the Rt Hon Viscount Cranborne (Q 1054). Its members are the President
of the Board of Trade, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the
Secretary of State for the National Heritage, the Secretary of
State for Education and Employment, the Chancellor of the Duchy
of Lancaster, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science and
Technology. The Committee-- known as GEN 37-- has the following
terms of reference: "To identify and take forward significant
cross-departmental initiatives to ensure that developments in
information technology are exploited to the full in the national
interest."
3.44 Although the DTI is the lead Government Department, there
is a wide range of activities to support the development and use
of the Information Superhighway throughout central and local government.
For example, funding has been provided for a local community
information project (South Bristol Learning Network), and the
Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) has taken initiatives
in the use of the Information Superhighway in all levels of education.[38]
The DfEE continues to support the maintenance and development
of the highly regarded SuperJANET network for higher education,
and is developing pilot application projects at primary and secondary
levels.
3.45 CITU has been examining the use of Information Technology
to "re-engineer government" (Q 1055). The Cambridge
Childcare Project, initiated by Anne Campbell MP, provides an
example of the potential for "one-stop-shop" terminals
in the UK. The service, which is operational in Cambridgeshire
as an Internet-based service using free public access points,
aims to provide parents with information on childcare, jobs, training
and benefits[39] in one convenient and easily accessible place. It
has been developed with both public and private sector support,
including the Citizens Advice Bureau, CambsTEC and Greater Peterborough
Tec, Benefits Agency, the Employment Service, Cambridge Careers
Guidance Ltd. and the City and County Councils. A prototype self-service
touch-screen kiosk, using sound, graphics and video, has been
developed by Andersen Consulting in association with the Cambridge
Childcare project. This prototype kiosk makes no distinction
between information usually provided by local or national organisations,
nor between public, voluntary, or private provision.
3.46 Many government departments have shown enthusiasm for using
advanced information technologies as a means of delivering information
to the public. A consultation document issued by CCTA (at the
time the leading proponent of use of the Internet within Government)
in 1994[40] explored the use of the Internet as a means of delivering
government reports and other information helpful to citizens.
Since 1994 an increasing amount of selected Government information
has been made available on the Internet. These include Press
releases, texts of speeches, departmental reports, Budget statements,
details of new Stationery Office[41] publications and a small-- but rapidly
growing-- number of HMSO documents in full text. Initiatives
spearheaded by CCTA include the establishment of the Government
Information Service to test demand for electronic communication
within Government, the pilot Government Telecommunications Network
(GTNet) project for direct communication between civil servants
and citizens and participation in the EU programme on the interchange
of information between administrations. The G7 Ministerial meeting
in February 1995[42] resulted in a commitment by participants to wider
dissemination of Government material, and the United Kingdom is
participating in some of the pilot projects endorsed by the Meeting,
such as the Government OnLine project.
3.47 The UK Government is thus supporting the development of the
Superhighways through a mixture of local and national initiatives,
and through a number of different Departments of State. In some
regards, however, its policy is out of step with other countries,
for example the lack of a single focal group or Ministry driving
the vision of the Information Society forward, and the continued
maintenance of Crown Copyright. In the USA and Japan there are
plans to link all schools to national twoway broadband infrastructures
by the year 2000, but as yet the United Kingdom does not have
an equivalent policy.
PARLIAMENT
3.48 The USA has led the way in using the Internet to disseminate
information about, and to improve two-way communications with,
its parliamentary institutions. The THOMAS Web server[43] is a joint
project between the Library of Congress and the University of
Massachusetts which went online in January 1995. It includes
searchable versions of House of Representatives and Senate bills,
searchable summaries of bills and legislative histories of bills
and amendments, browsable lists of bills and searchable records
of daily proceedings on the Floors of the House and Senate. The
next major database to be added will be the full text of Committee
reports. Of special interest to this Committee is the fact that
the House of Representatives Science Committee, like other House
Committees, has its own WWW page.[44] Members of Congress and Senators
can be reached by email, and the House of Representatives Home
Page includes a heading entitled "Empowering the Citizen-- links
to government efforts to improve the government via citizen input".
THOMAS has been heavily used by people from all parts of the
United States, as well as many foreign countries. Between 6 January
and 20 March 1995 there were 294,575 accesses to the THOMAS home
page.[45]
3.49 Parliaments in several of the new democracies have been swift
to recognise the potential of the Internet. For example, the
Parliaments of the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania
all have their own WWW Home Pages. In some cases full text access
to acts of parliament and the records of parliamentary debates
is already available on-line-- a considerable achievement given
the pace and scale of legislative change in these countries.
3.50 Amongst Commonwealth parliaments those of Australia and Canada
have been at the forefront in developing their provision of information
on the Internet. The Parliament of Australia, with the assistance
of the Australian National University, has undertaken a trial
to provide information on public access requirements, resources
and issues involved in providing public electronic access to parliamentary
materials, including Hansard and the Votes and Proceedings
of the House of Representatives and the Journals of the
Senate. The Parliament of Australia Internet trial did not include
parliamentary papers because of their number and size.[46] Most Australian
Commonwealth law and Australian Commonwealth regulations in full-text
have been made available by the Australasian Legal Information
Institute.
3.51 There is a growing interest in the use of the Internet to
facilitate inter-parliamentary communications and in setting up
a "node page" providing links between the home pages
of parliaments either on a Western European basis or, ultimately,
worldwide. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has set up the Parliamentary
Assembly Network (PA-NET) to facilitate communication between
OSCE member Parliaments which are online. It believes that "electronic
links between Parliaments will enhance the communication between
Members of Parliament, staff members and particularly between
Parliaments in transitional states and their counterparts."
PA-NET currently provides links to the home pages of over 20
other Parliaments, including Westminster.[47]
The House of Lords
3.52 The Westminster Parliament has not been an "early adopter"
of Internet technology either in its use to promote the dissemination
of a wide range of parliamentary information both to the UK electorate
and worldwide, or in the use of e-mail to facilitate two-way communication
and citizens' feedback. "The UK Houses of Parliament's Public
WWW Service"[48] provides, inter alia, factsheets about
the House of Commons, lists of members of the House of Commons
and information about visits to its gallery and about House of
Commons business. Although this home page at present makes no
mention of the House of Lords, under the heading "weekly
information bulletin" information is provided about the business
of both Houses, including forthcoming business in the House of
Lords and public meetings of House of Lords Select Committees.
3.53 The House of Lords is making arrangements to launch its own
home page in autumn 1996, following its adoption of the following
three principles on electronic publishing:
(i) the House should make its publications available free of
charge in electronic form;
(ii) the medium for free distribution should be the Internet;
(iii) by a system of licensing, electronic material should be made
freely available, on a non-exclusive basis, to commercial publishers
who wish to process it and add value to it.[49]
3.54 The first phase will include Lords Hansard on-line,
which will be launched before the end of 1996. Further developments,
including Internet publication of Bills and Committee Reports,
are planned for 1997. Some Acts are already available on the
Internet on HMSO's web site, and this service is to be expanded.
3.55 There is an on-going programme to cable the Houses of Parliament.
On present plans the cabling programme will be completed in the
year 2002.
