Local government IT, internet use, & capabilities

In January 2010 LT&RC commissioned an independent market research study to gauge the IT and internet skills, support and training needs of local government workers.

This study took the form of individual interviews in London, Portsmouth and Luton, all of which took place in January and February, 2010. The initial headline findings from the study were presented to

LT&RC on 21 February, 2010.

The study concentrated on the skills of the subjects with regard to IT and the internet, their use of office-based IT systems and software, and their support needs.

The study questions were organised around six themes:

Staff access to ITInternet useWebsitesIT skillsIT supportMicrosoft versus Apple

Staff access to IT:

Interestingly, though internet access was ubiquitous (100% of subjects were connected to the internet within the office), access to a PC and email was lower (88%). Meanwhile, the use of memory sticks was significantly lower, at 63%.

Internet use:

The answers to these questions both demonstrate the impact of internet use on working behaviour and the access of staff to it within the workplace. All of those questioned agreed that they use the internet regularly in the course of their work, but only 88% have access to it, leading to sharing of internet- connected PCs within the workplace.

In addition, just under two thirds of those questions confirmed that they needed access to the internet in the course of their work (65%).

Websites:

Only a third of those questioned had their own website (33%), while nearly two third had pages on a corporate site. When asked how helpful this website presence was, however, almost the same percentage (65%) was of the opinion that it was unhelpful.

IT skills:

Overall the IT skill level and impact of IT skills training on work performance scored highly with the research subjects. The majority of those questioned rated their IT skills as strong, or higher, and less than a quarter (22%) felt under-skilled in the workplace. Also, overall the vast majority of those questioned (80%) were positive about the impact of IT on their working experience.

IT support:

More than half of those interviewed received IT support from a commercial supplier (namely Serco, Dell or Gap Gemini). In terms of the quality of the service, this was highly rated (only a quarter was dissatisfied with the quality of the service received). In terms of the hardware used however, more than half complained that this was too slow for the work undertaken (58%).

Microsoft versus Apple in the workplace:

Perhaps unsurprisingly Microsoft accounted for 100% of the operating systems and business software used by the research subjects, with the dominating operating system being Windows XP (97%). All of those interviewed could also identify the internet browser used in the workplace (Windows Internet Explorer).

Apple has made no impact on the working environment of those interviewed.

In order to gain a comprehensive spread of informed opinion, research subjects were selected from a wide spread of London boroughs, all of which had trained with LT&RC, as follows:

LB of WestminsterNeighbourhood Solutions LimitedLuton Borough CouncilNeighbourhood Training & Resource Centre (South East)LB of Southwark

You can download the complete findings (PDF): Download...