By Tony Fawl
Innovation Executive
Enterprise plc
England

tony@fawl.net

The area for which I have concentrated most of my research work is Lancashire in the North West of England. For Lancashire to benefit Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) it should develop new skills, a better educated workforce, the potential to develop new products and services, the facilitation of increased export earnings potential and access to new markets and increased business efficiency. With these, new jobs will be created and wealth creation will, in turn, foster further economic prosperity.

In recognising this, the region of Lancashire has, for the last two years, been actively encouraging the development of the Information Society across all sectors. It has worked closely with other regional players and is supported by the European Union. An Information Society network has therefore developed during this time and plays its role in the developments of Lancashire regional activities.

Lancashire is situated in the North West Region of England, it has a population of 1.4 million people. Its economy is divers in that it has a number of major industrial (especially aerospace) and rural/agricultural areas and the largest tourist resort in Europe (Blackpool).

• A strong culture of manufacturing industry with the attendant skills and training infrastructure built up over many generations.
• A world class centre of excellence of aerospace and defence design and manufacture and, in consequence, the most important centre of high tech industry jobs outside the South East of England.
• A large and diverse industrial base, including the representation of many well-known national and international companies, sectoral clusters of national importance and large sub-contractor networks.
• A core of innovative and growing SMEs on which to build, alongside R & D facilities of major employers, with opportunities for technology transfer..
• A low cost manufacturing and distribution base.
• A strong Higher Education Institution establishment via two Universities and ten Collages of Further Education; Lancaster a "Level One" research University.
• A strong sense of the County’s "place in history, of local community identity and of belonging".
• A sound infrastructure of business support and development organisations, including Enterprise plc, one of Europe’s largest economic development specialists.
• An important role as a centre for tourism, leisure and heritage with access to a wide range of cultural, leisure and sporting facilities.
• Nationally important natural resources in the form of offshore oil and gas and ready availability construction materials.

• A peripheral geographical location with respect to Europe, lack of a positive economic identity and an outmoded image of a declining industrial region.
• GDP per head, the most commonly used measure of economic well being, is only 93%of the UK average and 91% of the EU average.
• One of the most defence-industry dependent/vulnerable regions in the European Community.
• A fundamental weakness in industrial structure; other than aerospace/defence, an emphasis on mature/low value added/low wage industries and services and low representation of faster growing and high technology activities.
• A "branch economy" with poor representation of corporate headquarters and research and development functions which has made the task of securing new rounds of investment on new products and processes harder to achieve.
• A high representation of SMEs not equipped to deal with the opportunities and challenges presented by a fast moving economic climate and in particular the Single European Market.
• One of the lowest rates of new business formation in the UK; below average rates of business survival.
• A weak financial/investment/professional service base and a failure to share fully in the nationally expanding private services employment.
• Under-investment in renewal of the industrial and physical capital stock: a high proportion is in need of significant renovation and repair.
• A shortage of high quality readily available business development sites linked to the problems associated with under-used, derelict and abused land and buildings.
• Restructuring of the seaside resorts required to meet continued decline of traditional holiday markets and the resorts’ outdated physical infrastructure.
• Pockets of high unemployment combined with wage rates which remain 10% below the national average, including a high proportion of "hidden" and long-term unemployed with low levels of basic skills.
• Population decline in some areas particularly marked by the large-scale net outward migration of younger and better qualified age groups.

In the five years to 1991 Lancashire had one of the fastest growing economies in the UK but with the impact of recession and a less impressive aerospace out-turn, the County’s growth has fallen back considerably. In spite of substantial contributions to national wealth creation, Lancashire remains a lower middle ranking region in terms of its general level of prosperity with GDP per head well below both the UK and European union averages. "Leakage’s" from the economy place the county in an even more unfavourable position in terms of household incomes per head.

Average weekly earnings of full-time workers in Lancashire remains some 10% below national levels and are the lowest in the North West region for both males and females (manual and non-manual combined). The rate of increase in earnings continues to slow in Great Britain, but remains above the inflation rate. Males and Females in Lancashire continue to work marginally longer average hours than in Great Britain and the North West generally.

Only a small number of local industries are achieving higher productivity levels than nationally and the underlying trend (excluding aerospace) points to a substantial and widening gap between Lancashire and Great Britain.

Lancashire is a below middle-ranking region in the European Union in economic terms. The European Commission’s latest analysis of regional wealth or income generation per head of the population estimates a level of GDP per head for Lancashire of 91.1 (EU average = 100) (2) . This represents a fall of three percentage points from the previous estimate of three years earlier. The County ranks 83^rd lowest out of the 179 regions of the Community (3), some 37% of EU population being in regions with lower levels of per capital incomes than Lancashire. These include all Objective 1 areas, the lagging or less developed areas, covering the whole of Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, southern Italy, most of Spain and the new Lander formerly in East Germany as well as the newly designated Merseyside and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. If these areas are excluded and Lancashire is compared with the developed parts of the EU only, its position is much less favourable. Only 15% of the population of the "developed" Community are in regions with lower GDP per head levels than Lancashire, half of these being in other UK regions. Among Northern England sub-regions, Cheshire and Cumbria are exceptional in having levels of GDP per head above the EU average, 104.0 and 103.0 respectively. Greater Manchester’s figure is comparable to that of Lancashire.

The leading regions in economic terms in the European Union are mainly the large cities or city regions, Hamburg, Ile de France (Paris), Greater London and parts of southern Germany and northern Italy. The gap between the richest and poorest regions remains considerable: for example, in 1991 the top ten regions had an average income per head some 3.5 times greater than the bottom ten (4.5 times including the new German Lander).

The accession of Sweden and Finland to the European Union could improve the prospects for regions in Northern England, including Lancashire, which are geographically better placed than most to intensify their economic relationships with them. Overall, however, the likelihood of any major improvement in Lancashire’s economic standing, relative to EU averages, is small and the probable prospect is that the County’s present position will be broadly maintained.

Lancashire is an area with a genuine need for radical economic and social regeneration having:

• A peripheral European location.
• Lack of modern identity, and image.

Fundamental weaknesses of infrastructure.

• dependency on low value added industries;
• low percentage of high technology firms;
• few corporate headquarters.
• Low rate of new business formation.
• Low levels of new investment.
• Degraded urban environments, high proportions of sub-standard housing stock.

Economic development initiatives should include not only new infrastructure, and new services but most importantly real economic growth - not merely rationalisation of existing resources.

Fr this and other reasons, a number of key organisations decided in 1995 that the opportunity for the region to become more competitive because of the implementation of the new Telecommunications and Information Technologies (Telematics) should be seriously considered. The IRISI programme presented a clear opportunity to do this.

The Inter-Regional Information Society Initiative grew out of the Delors White Paper which identified the large-scale adoption of applications of computers linked to telecommunications (telematics) as a key factor in the future global competitiveness of Europe. The pilot programme has been administered under contract between six regions and the EC, which expired on 31 March 1997. These regions are North West (England); Valencia (Spain), Nord-Pas de Calais (France), Saxony (Germany), Central Macedonia (Greece) and Piemonte (Italy).

A North West IRISI Steering Group was formed in 1995 to determine as fully as possible ways in which actors in the region were already deploying telematics and information infrastructures.

Key organisations in each of the sub regions in Lancashire were asked to assist in this process by staging workshops and demonstration events. In Lancashire, a working group was set up to stage such events and identify organisations in the region that could contribute. I was asked to take on the role of co-ordinator for these events and became the Convenor for the Lancashire IRISI Working Group. From its earliest beginnings a great deal of importance was placed on the development of a cross-sectoral network to support the collation of information for a North West Information Society Strategy.

This took two years to develop, through a concentrated effort of a number of sub-regional and thematic working groups. The completed strategy document highlighted the benefits of telecommunications and information technologies and stimulated demand to the point that Government offices are now receiving proposals for major telematics projects, both large and small, from organizations across the region.

The other IRISI regions all have regional government with some influence and resources. It makes a considerable difference and places the North West at a relative disadvantage since there is not a recognised representative political except via its five constituent county authorities (Cumbria, Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside and Manchester). However the North West IRISI has developed real partnerships and meaningful consensus in the implementation of telematics projects throughout the region.

Key organisations in the North West such as the North West Partnership (a partnership of business and institutional organisations) and The North West Regional Association (a body representing all North West local government authorities) have been encouraged to introduce priorities into their economic strategies. Such action has resulted in the establishment of ‘priorities’ in economic strategy documents used in the determination of European and National government budgets.

Cross-sector consultation over a two year period enabled North West IRISI to identify key Information Society issues and to develop priority areas and actions for organisations working in partnership to implement.

These priorities are:

1. To Develop an advanced, region-wide telecommunications infrastructure, providing broadband access and services to the region’s citizens and businesses, and which is vital to the region’s economic growth and social well-being.
2. The region’s businesses and communities must profit from access to information and to global markets and new opportunities for export earnings, inward investment, new ways of working and new types of enterprise.
3. High quality and cost-effective education and training for the region’s population holds the key to economic prosperity and social cohesion in the next century and should maximise the benefits of the Information Society.
4. High quality support for businesses, from each other and other agencies, through the creation of electronic learning and supply chain networks, is vital in increasing the region’s competitiveness.
5. The potential of telematics in improving citizens’ and visitors’ services will be exploited as a means of improving the quality of life and the environment of the region, thus enhancing the region’s image.
6. Widening awareness of and access to telematics is a pre-condition for truly realising an Information Society. Accordingly, the North West of England will seek to promote and develop a cross-sectoral range of services and applications to meet the needs and interests of its inhabitants.

The introduction of Telematics in the other regions is moving quickly. Five other IRISI regions (Valencia, Nord-Pas de Calais, Saxony, Central Macedonia and Piemonte) are making significant progress in the implementation of the Information Society. The strengths of these regions can be summarised as follows:

• Political & Financial backing from a Regional Government
• Secure, active and progressive Regional Information Society Units
• Management Committee Representatives who can commit full time to the development of the initiative both regionally and inter-regionally.

Management Committee Representatives from Valencia, Nord-Pas de Calais, Saxony, and Central Macedonia are full time employees of IRISI in their respective regions.

The innovative aspect of the IRISI approach rests on the institutional mechanisms by which the strategy has been developed, i.e. a partnership between regional and local institutions and the business associations plus representatives from training and education institutions, trade unions, chambers of commerce, the co-operative movement and the voluntary sector.

The research into the requirements of organisations in the North West in terms of priorities and actions and the resultant development of major Telematics projects such as Telecities, GENESIS, North West Regional TechWeb project, Future for Change, and GEMESIS as well as programmes in the North West which have won Bangemann Awards, all demonstrate that IRISI has been successful to date and that there is a clear need for the initiative to continue.

The RISI project, with a budget of 6 million ECU’s, concerns 23 regions across Europe and is seen by many as having broadly the same objectives. This means that, overall, nearly 25% of all eligible regions under the Structural Funds are currently engaged in the process of strategy building and of its translation into an action plan. Moreover, the Commission is launching pluri-regional pilot applications under Art. 10 of the ERDF and Art.6 of the ESF, with a budget of 15 million ECU’s, for demonstrating best practice in the regional deployment of the information society (RISI).

It is necessary to encourage the implementation of telematics by the general public, which can have a catalytic effect for the region and trigger many private sector initiatives. The Commission is already co-financing some actions, e.g. for setting up tele-cottages in rural areas, under Objectives 1, 5(b) and 6, and local telematics projects under the Community Initiative LEADER II. There are many other Community actions related to the information society for example, WOLF, with a budget of 530 000 ECU’s financed under the Article 10 of the ERDF and IMPLACE initiative to stimulate the use of advanced ICTs by manufacturing SMEs in LFRs and the MARSOURCE initiative to favour the use of electronic trade systems for fishery products thereby contributing to overcome the disadvantages of remote areas.

The threat of globalisation and its effects on jobs and the development of a successful economy indicates that now more than ever, we must encourage the community as a whole to reach out to a wider audience, we must be aware and be wary of the threat of new entrants into our markets. This extends further than Europe, we must guard ourselves from the significant competitive advantages gained by advances in the development of the information society in Asia and the Americas.

The previous two years have concentrated on the development of the North West Information Society Strategy. This, through a concentrated effort of a number of sub-regional and thematic working groups, has highlighted the benefits of telecommunications and information technologies and stimulated demand to the point that Government offices are now receiving proposals for major telematics projects, both large and small, from organizations across the region. As yet however, there is no ‘Center of Excellence’ providing examples of best practice, case study material and examples of projects from other parts of the European Union. There is no central coordinated effort to assist organizations in the development and implementation of effective telematics initiatives and no liaison with the government departments responsible for instigating such activities.

In February 1995, a workshop was staged in Lancashire to promote awareness of the IRISI Initiative. There was wide representation (approximately 150 people), from all sectors including business groups, local authority departments, emergency services, airport authorities and representatives from educational establishments from Primary schools to Universities.

The workshop highlighted the importance of developing a telematics infrastructure in the region. It concluded that business will increasingly use telematics, and public organisations (administration, education and community bodies) will play a major part. In assisting these organisations with their telematics requirements the region will, in turn, develop a more rapid take-up from the business community helping them become more competitive and enabling them to market their products and services more effectively throughout the world. It concluded that the Lancashire community as a whole must be encouraged to embrace the new communications technologies if infrastructure is to improve. Businesses will not necessarily introduce telematics technology until their customers and suppliers require that they do so. The sooner it happens the more competitive businesses will become. They will steel a march on competition overseas and increase their chances of reaching new markets.

A community cross sector telematics network was set-up to facilitate the use of telematics by public, community and administrative bodies. Education establishments were focused on the development and training of Lancashire people in the benefits of the new technologies spurring their use in the purchase of goods and services, the maintenance of supplier/customers relations and up to the minute information on goods and services.

On the whole we found that the region was very interested (and concerned) about the developments of the new communications technologies. While making sure that the region benefited for the developments of new applications, there was also concern that the implementation of such technology would lead to a more marked differentiation between those able to afford the equipment and those who would not (‘haves’ and ‘have nots’). A demonstration day was organised in May 1995 so that the region could take a more detailed look at working examples of telematics applications and familiarise themselves with the technologists and suppliers in the region.

Following this activity a working group was set up to act as a focal point for people in the region interested in telematics and to provide information to the NW IRISI Steering Group in their development of a North West Information Society Strategy.

Initially, the group only met to organise small demonstrations (by British Telecom and the local cable companies for instance), but there were a large number of requests for attendance at these meetings, which were held every month. In June 1996 there were seventy-one members of the working group and the it was perceived that the group had unfortunately become a ‘talking shop’. A decision was made to change the Working Groups into an Advisory Group and that a number of ‘project specific’ Working Groups would be set up meeting only to discuss either the development of telematics applications, proposals or implementation issues. Each group represented a its own sector.

The Lancashire IRISI Advisory Group comprised of leading decision-makers in the communications field such as Telecom companies and the convenors of the sub-groups. The Advisory Groups main activity was to provide information, advice and resources to the sub-groups and to produce and deliver awareness events. The working groups and their activities are listed below.

Lancashire Telematics Awareness Programme, Enterprise plc

Lancashire World Wide Web Server, Enterprise plc & University of Central Lancashire

Mobilisation of strategic organisations in the Region, Enterprise plc

A modest sum of money to fund the administrative aspects of the programme was secured, but the vast majority of input was voluntary and dependent on goodwill and, although very encouraging at the start, it became clear that not only did the group require funds for the administration of their resources and time, but also for the projects they were working up.

By the summer of 1996 the Lancashire IRISI Advisory Group had assisted 47 telematics projects. The value of these projects exceeded £14 million and each project varied widely in scope and resource requirements. Many of these project managers had been encouraged to develop applications after attending one or more Awareness, Demonstration or Training events staged in Lancashire by the Advisory Group.

Despite this I became concerned that the IRISI project, on the whole, was ‘unseen’. It was an invisible organisation, which seemed to have an air authority but no ‘teeth’. There was no guidance for the activities of the Advisory Group in Lancashire from IRISI North West or from IRISI in Brussels. A number of capable people were involved with the Initiative at all levels, but not, it seems, in the development of telematics applications in any of the regions. Some of the Lancashire Advisory Group members were at a loss why we should have associated with IRISI at all.

A number of needs were identified that had to be addressed if the progress made was to continue. As the activities of the group became more pervasive, more and more project managers in the region were dependent on other members of the group putting a strain on the resources and ‘good-will’. The Lancashire IRISI Advisory Group decided to submit a proposal to Government Office North West for a major programme to fund the needs of the Working Groups in Lancashire and the implementation of a range of baseline telematics applications which could clearly demonstrate the benefits (or otherwise) of telecommunications and Information technologies to the community.

The challenge was to identify and introduce a range of applications which would provide a wide variety of services, enhance the efficiency of the region’s public organisations, improve the competitiveness of its businesses, and provide its citizens with greater opportunity for employment and better quality of life.

The significance of the bid to the strategic objectives of the British Governments Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) was that it would support a number of initiatives across all sectors to achieve a balance of economic and social considerations. This was essential in order to ensure that benefits were spread throughout society, and did not lead to exclusion and further division.

The Linking Lancashire proposal document was submitted to Government Office North West on September 9^th 1996 with endorsement from twenty of the largest private and public institutions in the County. Towards the end of December however, we were notified that the proposal had been unsuccessful in its bid for funding.

This was a severe blow to the 90 organisations that took part in its development. Motivation within the network became very low with poor attendance at Working Group meeting and Awareness events. In January 1997 a representative from Government Office North West delivered a presentation to the Advisory Group to explain the reasoning behind the decision to reject the bid. It seemed that the bid was too complicated and that there should have been more effective lobbying, in terms of awareness of features and benefits, to the relevant parties within the Government Office. I personally found the evaluation presentation to be subjective. Other members of the partnership were also dissatisfied with the Governments reasoning.

The Lancashire Advisory Group is still endeavouring to implement as many of the projects in the Linking Lancashire Programme as possible. But the goodwill, relied upon previously, cannot be counted upon and working group members are finding it difficult to justify their activities in Lancashire IRISI to their companies and institutions.

Government initiatives around Britain can be deemed to have failed in developing the country’s Information Society because the motivation required by organisations across all sectors is very high. It is not just the problems of computer equipment investment or training, but the European attitude to change. We still suffer a technophobia concerning computers and advances in the embrace of ICTs are slow and out of date almost immediately they are introduced.

A study was recently carried out by Gilly McHugh and Murrey Saunders of CSET at Lancaster University to look at the incorporation of ICTs into the North West ‘s Human Resources Development Strategy. The report examined the regions economy and highlighted the need for collaborative actions to encourage the take-up of ICTs to help improve competitiveness. The work of Lancashire IRISI Advisory Group contributed to the findings of this report and helped to form the implementation model and the arguments below. It can be applied equally, in my opinion, to other regions within Europe.

The research concluded that there is still a need to tackle the problem of basic numeracy and literacy within sections of the community before training in ICTs can take place. There is a lack of provision for publicly funded ICT courses at the higher skills level. Unemployed people will find it difficult to access the training that employed people enjoy (usually funded by the employer). Employed people are able to develop ICT skills through experiences at work though this depends on the utilisation of ICT resources in the workplace.

When CSET questioned a small section of the business community in the North West of England they found that:

• A high percentage of the sample (54%) reported a significant increase (more than 66%) in the overall use of ICTs within their organisations and a further 20% said that there had been an overall increase in use of between 33% and 66%.
• In terms of individual tasks, the heaviest uses reported were to routine operations. For example 62% of respondents reported a high level of use in respect of databases and 88% reported a high level of use in word processing.
• Respondents reported low levels of use in respect of video conferencing, with only 22% reporting low use and 74% reporting no use for this type of ICT.
• Email use was higher, however, with 30% of respondents reporting a high usage.
• There were low levels of use in respect of teleworking (only 22% of the sample reported high levels of use), telemarketing (only 10%), and telesales (only 12%).

As the size of the sample was only small (58 organisations), CSET suggest that the results are indicative rather than conclusive. However it is clear to see that the organisations interviewed would not consider themselves to be sophisticated users of ICTs.

The findings of the Lancashire IRISI Advisory Group during the period 1995 - 1997 also indicated that these findings could be applied to other organisations outside commerce, public administration for instance and the health service.

What was evident though was the use of ICTs as a learning tool within those organisations. The emergence of distance learning and distance working because of the introduction of ICTs can not be ignored and the trend is that this will continue. There are formal home-based distance workers, mobile technicians and multi-site workers and the most common of all, the informal home based worker.

The informal home based worker probably provides his/her own equipment for working at home even though it may be used in an environment which is ergonomically unsuitable (eg. the kitchen table). He/she will not receive payment for the purchase of the equipment or the use of electricity, heat and light. This person is most likely to be a professional or student whose work involves the concentrated use of PCs from time to time.

This type of user is highly motivated either because of pressures of work or because they realise the savings in time and energy resulting from the use of ICTs. Or it may be because that person recognise the need to develop new ICT skills in the future and feels that the most convenient method is for study at home.

Individuals are more likely to adopt ICTs and therefore access telematic applications such as the Internet if they, or a member of their family, utilise ICTs in the working environment.

According to the European Journal of Teleworking (Spring 1997), the factors that will most influence the small business to purchase ICTs are likely to be:

• Company profitability as opposed to turnover
• Growth Ambitious companies as opposed to Quality of Life companies (those in which the proprietors sustain business simply to satisfy life-style aspirations).
• When the company is striving to add value to their products or services.
• When the company is committed to training its staff.

These factors alone will not determine the take-up of ICTs in the business community. We must still look to the development of the ‘killer application’ for this to happen. We must also be careful to understand that ICTs are not prevalent in all sectors of the business community. Manufacturing companies for instance do not require their shop floor workers to use ICTs. In many cases, ICTs are only likely to be used by administrative and management staff. This is a significant section and the implementation of ICTs across all sectors can still happen. Taking this and the above considerations into account, the development of telematics activity in commerce indicates that:

• the stimulation of ICTs in the work environment will have a significant effect on telematics training in the community
• the workforce will be prepared to invest in ICTs in the home provided that there is a demonstrable use to the family unit (ie. assistance with workload, convenience, entertainment, education etc.)
• distance learning can be achieved cheaply for a family unit with access to ICTs in the home.

The problem (or opportunities) facing the European community in the adoption of ICTs in the community could therefore be:

• the stimulation of ICT based business applications
• the availability of distance learning material to help in re-training the community in the use of ICTs and telematics applications.

The exploitation of the countries skills in a prosperous economic environment is usually dependent on the business community. Commerce will set wage levels and working conditions commensurate with the supply of skilled people to that organisation. It could therefore be argued that the responsibility for the development of an environment in which new technologies are to be implemented should lie with the business community. Employment is the responsibility of employers and since, by its very nature, employment is exploitative, it should be employers who determine the ICT skill requirement of the community.

A community keen to see the implementation of ICTs for the benefit of all and not just the prosperous should therefore concentrate their efforts on encouraging the use of ICTs through telematics applications. These should be aimed in such a way as to provide practical, demonstrable benefits to a business and its aim should be to make that business more competitive.

The introduction of ICTs into the business community will enable the workforce to take advantage of traditionally structured training which would be available through commercial training companies or education institutions and using the many distance learning packages that are already available. This will, in turn encourage informal home working and the participation of the family unit.

You may consider this approach oversimplified and you should consider the other effects of ICT introduction in commerce:

• ICT use is considered by many people to be the future, motivation to learn will be high in the expectation of higher salaries and better working conditions.
• Support organisations will be formed to service ICT equipment and commercial training companies will develop specialist ICT courses.
• A resultant home ICT use will stimulate the development of home software packages and the development of local content (local entertainment schedules on the World Wide Web etc.).
• A higher profile of ICTs in the community will raise awareness of the benefits of ICTs and telematics and spur further usage through schools, libraries, friends etc.
• Local government and education establishments will be more likely to address social inclusion issues as it becomes clear that the ‘prosperity gap’ is widening because of ICT implementation in commerce.

The argument for bandwidth over application has been debated for some time. Many feel that the argument has now settled on the side of ‘applications’. However, I feel that it is important to briefly discuss the arguments for both in the context of ICT implementation.

The development of a communications infrastructure should rely on the provision for electronic communications facilities that are capable of delivering information at a rate that is useful to those wishing to process that information. It would involve, for instance, the laying of wide band telecommunications cable across large sections of the community. The provision of this resource would spur the development of telematics applications. It would also promote the development of more advanced telematics applications since it is likely that the cable laid would be of very high bandwidth (so more data could be passed through it). This is the bandwidth argument.

The development of telematics applications is, as with all software development, hit and miss. It is impossible to predict the success of an application and it is likely that most will fail. The successful applications will require higher bandwidth only when they achieve success and therefore bandwidth provision would not be required immediately and when it was, the customer would agree to contribute to the cost. If money were available to be spent therefore, it should be channelled to the development of applications through training, awareness and software development. This is the Applications argument.

It is easy to side with the applications argument because it can be perceived that the initial investment may be small and build gradually as success is achieved. Cable infrastructure is very expensive. However, countries with a poor telecommunications infrastructure need to urgently address this problem as do all countries with a telecommunications monopoly. Most countries in Europe are capable of providing high bandwidth communications but the monopoly telecoms companies are not inclined to do this cheaply.

In Germany, local telecoms costs for say, the Internet are prohibitive. In the United States local telephone calls, in many areas, are free. Analysts believe that the reason for this is that there are numerous telecoms companies in the United States and they all compete for business, this drives down costs to the end user. Telephone charges can inhibit the use of ICTs. This is a European issue and needs to be addressed urgently.

In considering the experiences of IRISI and of the research work carried out above as it applies to the community of Lancashire and the North West, the following simplified ICT implementation points should be considered.

COM(96)73 of 13 March 1996 on "Universal service for telecommunications in the perspective of a fully liberalised environment".

Lancashire County Council. County Planning Department, May 1996 "LANCASHIRE - Population, Income, Wage Levels",

"Public access to information society services" of  COM(96)73 of 13 March 1996 on "Universal service for telecommunications in the perspective of a fully liberalised environment"

The Road Ahead, Bill Gates, 1995

Lost in Cyberspace, Victor Smart and Jonathan Miller, The European 11-17 September 1997.

ELTEC Local Economic Review 1995/6

McHugh, G & Saunders, M the Impact of Information & Communication Technologies on Work and Organisations in the North West of England. A report prepared for the European Union under the IRISI action 1997.

"Linking Lancashire", The Lancashire Communications Partnership, Sept. 1996

"The Information Society in Lancashire", Lancashire IRISI Advisory Group, May 1996

First Report on Economic and Social Cohesion (CEC, November 1996)

COM(96)73 of 13 March 1996 Green Paper "Living and working in the Information Society: people first", CEC July 1996.

COM(96)332 final of 10 July 1996 on "Inventing tomorrow - Europe’s research at the service of its people"

Competitiveness and Cohesion: Trends in the Regions - 5^th periodic report on the social and economic situation of the regions in the Community.

The European Journal of Teleworking, The official Journal of the ECTF (ISSN: 0966 7458) Vol 4 No. 4 Spring 1997.