IN THIS ISSUE:

• Central government behind local for mobile services
• Colchester divides into seven mobile zones
• Rotterdam pioneers mobile street officers
• Awesome Beta: new trial portal
• Race On: London apps competition
• Youth Skills: job finding tool
• EGB Focus:
  Nine in 10 councils embrace social media

NEWS: Central government behind local for mobile services

Central government is lagging up to five years behind local government in implementation of mobile services to citizens, one service provider with extensive UK public sector experience has told E-Government Bulletin. The scale of rolling out mobile projects at central government level means projects take longer to deploy...

Read full story here, Central government behind...

Back to index

---

NEWS: Colchester divides into seven mobile zones

A project assigning council street service workers geographical zones and giving them mobile devices to run multiple services in teams is being launched this summer by Colchester Borough Council. The council has divided its area into seven zones of various sizes depending on geography and population...

Read full story here, Colchester divides...

Back to index

---

NEWS: Rotterdam pioneers mobile street officers A lightweight mobile enforcement system developed by the City of Rotterdam is the most comprehensive and flexible of its kind anywhere in the world, the city council has told E-Government Bulletin. The “iThor” system is built around parking enforcement and monitoring of other street and environmental issues... Read full story here, Rotterdam pioneers mobile... Back to index

---

NEWS IN BRIEF:

Awesome Beta: The government's new trial central portal for online services, Betagov — the follow up to experimental prototype Alphagov released last year — has been welcomed by the development community as usable, accessible and less orange. Following complaints about the inaccessibility of Alphagov to users with disabilities, the new service in its first fortnight had generated no complaints in this respect, prompting one insider to speculate: “it's too quiet out there”. Online democracy software specialist Delib said the new site's strengths include the fact it is open source; and it integrates location-based tools:

Quick link: Awesome Beta

Back to index

Race On: The finalists have now been selected in a “Race for Apps”, a competition led by Hackney Council to find the best five mobile apps developed for us by businesspeople, media and visitors coming to East London for the 2012 Olympics. Categories include exploring the area; helping people link up and collaborate; and citizen journalism. Each category is assigned a “lane”, with eight runners up for gold, silver and bronze medals. Winners (who will share £10,000 and other prizes) will be announced on 1 June at the Digital Shoreditch festival:

Quick link: Race On

Back to index

Youth Skills: An online software tool to help young people understand what ICT skills they need to compete in the modern job market is being developed for international use by Telecentre-Europe, an association of digital inclusion projects from across Europe. “Skillage“ will be available online through web browsers and on Facebook, with a smartphone app also in planning. It will be launched ahead of Get Online Week 2012, which runs from 26-30 March:

Quick link: Youth Skills

Back to index

---

Nine in 10 councils embrace social media: EGB Focus

Almost all UK local authorities now make official use of social media, with many councils now running multiple accounts to cover different services and projects, a report due out next month will find. The annual "Better Connected" snapshot report of UK council websites, published by the Society of IT Management (Socitm), is set to include a social media report for the second time... Read full story here, Nine in 10 councils... Back to index