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20 May 2002

Report from the 1st Public Sector iDTV Forum Conference

By Simon Rees

The first SourceUK Public Sector iDTV Forum Conference produced a strong showing of experts and delegates at the BBC West1 Centre in London on 16 May.

Speaker sessions included an update from Chris Haynes, Advisor to the DTLR Local Government Modernisation Team on the latest thinking and position at the Department on iDTV. This included a commitment to the channel as an enabler and its power to deliver to 'hard-to-reach' and rural communities. Chris emphasised that hooks and incentives would be required to stimulate uptake and that the Government should look to fund access over and above its current commitment. With regards to funding, he re-iterated that more money may be available in the forthcoming Spending Review and that this could be "twice as much".

Ian Skinner for the Department for Work and Pensions and their partner DNA Consulting presented a case study of how the Department was making pensions information available through digital television. An important point arising from the talk was that the Department had developed the channel in manageable chunks that could be controlled and from which useful lessons could be learned.

Bernard Thirkettle of Hertfordshire County Council and Angus Drever of MultiMedia Television (MMTV) discussed their experiences of HertsDirect, an eGovernment initiative developed through the template approach that MMTV provides for local authorities. The approach is said to provide a low-cost, rapid application development for iDTV services. MMTV's claims were endorsed by NTL who last week announced an agreement to work with them on the local government market. See the Local Government section of this edition of eGov monitor Weekly for further details.

Other presentations included Kirklees Metropolitan Council's INtouch project, pilots and case studies from the Department of Health, comments from the Office of the e-Envoy and a review of a number of other iDTV projects.

Supplier representation came from MMTV, the London Internet Exchange, Oyster, Andersen, Oracle, Detica, Eunite, Dome, Colyes, AMX, Belwether, Capita, NDS and Yoomedia.

Feedback from delegates was very positive and the public sector representatives seemed to have gained significantly from the day.

More detailed coverage of the event and notes from the conference will shortly be available online from the IDTV Public Sector Forum at: http://www.sourceuk.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi

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