FUW CONTRIBUTES TO MAJOR REPORT ON BROADBAND ACCESS AND E-GOV

The Farmers' Union of Wales is working with university computer buffs and representatives of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) across Europe in drawing up a major report which could help Welsh farmers win better Broadband access plus incentives to fill in official forms online.

FUW vice president Glyn Roberts and director of public relations Peter Roberts have just returned from an EU Rural-eGov meeting in Athens also attended by academics and SME representatives from Greece, Poland, Slovenia and Germany as part of an EC Leonardo da Vinci initiative.

The FUW and Cardiff University's eCommerce Innovation Centre are the Welsh partners in the project aimed at improving the uptake of electronic public administration services (e-Government services) in rural areas throughout Europe.

The two-year pilot project, which started in October 2006, has analysed the needs of SMEs in rural Wales, Greece, Germany, Poland and Slovenia who have different types and levels of e-Government services and deployment.

The FUW is now looking forward to contributing recommendations and comments in a final dissemination report.

"The project involved two FUW-organised workshops attended by more than 20 farmers and other SME representatives who showed a huge amount of interest in the practical examples of e-Government services such as cattle movement and vehicle registration and paying income tax and VAT online," said Glyn Roberts.

"But a glaring outcome was the number of complaints by several representatives about ineffective broadband access with parts of Pembrokeshire, Montgomeryshire - and even the Rhoose area around Cardiff International Airport - reported to be particular blackspots."

Peter Roberts said the project confirmed that access to a fast internet connection was becoming an increasingly useful tool for farmers with registering cattle movements online a regular task.

"So it is vital that we have effective access to broadband technology to carry out these tasks quickly and efficiently.

"Electronic services are rapidly becoming critical means for providing services for businesses, citizens, and public institutions through the internet and with the spread of information and communication technologies (ICT) advancements, new challenges have emerged, highlighting the need for better, more cost effective and more accessible services.

"Many European local or central governments have made substantial investments for improving e-government infrastructures and services for citizens and businesses.

"Considerable advances have been achieved in the rollout of ICT-based e-government services in many European regions, and success has already been registered - for example, online tax returns save millions of hours each year.

"However, much remains to be done in order to record essential progress and social acceptance of ICT and e-services in areas lagging behind in their development or adoption.

"This problem can be clearly identified when considering ICT and e-service adoption by SMEs in rural areas. For example, being away from the central public authorities, they do not have direct, physical access to a variety of public sector services.

"They are far off the decision and policy-making centres and it is neither always feasible - due to lack of transportation, time, money or bad weather - nor convenient to travel for obtaining the necessary information or for making use of the available public service.

"ICT and e-services aim to address such problems by providing the means for interested stakeholders - such as public authorities - to deploy and provide their services online and by facilitating rural SMEs in accessing e-services from their region.

"On the other hand, in many cases professionals and citizens are not aware of electronically available services, or do not know how to effectively use them so as to reap benefits in their everyday business activities."