e-Democracy Day - Bristol
31st October 2007
Ian Wiebkin – Kirklees Council
Our History
• Formerly the DigiTV National Project – sponsored by ODPM
• Now owned and managed by Kirklees Council (not for profit)
• DigiTV Starter Kit – „microsite‟, content, images, forms and questionnaires
• 3 Channels:
- Digital Television: Sky, Virgin TV, connected Freeview
- Mobile Phones
- Kiosks (CitySpace)
• Available to any LA or other public sector body (Police, Fire, Housing etc.)
• A route to deliver Local Strategic Partnerships
• Nearly 80 Local Authorities to date
• Nearly 750,000 hits a month
Our Brands
Our customer (LA) facing brand
Our consumer facing brands:
TV & Mobile
The DigiTV Audience
There is a clearly defined audience for DigiTV:
• Digitally excluded, with a focus on the C2, D and E demographic
• Evidence suggests that these people are the highest users of public
services, the most expensive to service and the most difficult to reach
Results from recent Looking Local national questionnaire:
• 69% did not have or did not use a PC at home
• 66% were either unemployed, lone parent, disabled or older person
Ofcom June 2007 - Ethnic minority groups and communications services report:
• 52% of non EMG households and 63% of EMG households had TV capable
of accessing Looking Local
• c. 90% of the adult population owns a mobile phone
Plugins
• Interactive TV and Mobile gives us the opportunity to provide real time links
to external computer systems. These can be developed by the microsite
owner, external 3rd party Plugin Partners or DigiTV:
• Jobsearch – Jobcentre Plus
• GP Appointments – Pioneered by e@SY Connects
• e@SY Connects - Educational e-Mentoring
• e@SY Connects - e-Petitioning
• Barnsley – Benefit claim status
• SYPTE – „YourNextBus‟ for individual bus stops from GPS information
• South Lanarkshire - PC and library item booking and renewal
• Brent – property search for ward, polling stations, rubbish collection day,
coucil tax bands, local schools etc
• Avon & Somerset Police & Herts Direct - CMS integration
• Wychavon – Choice Based Lettings
Plugin Development
“Within two working days I had
finished development of seven
plugins that link into the various
systems and live information
available from our website.
I'm proud to have extended our
services onto digital TV in a way
that it will automatically keep them
up to date without any further
time or effort.
Development was very straight
forwards and rewarding, I found it
a nice break from working on more
elaborate systems.”
e@SY Connects e-Petitions Online
e@SY Connects e-Petitions on TV
e@SY Connects Award Finalists
e@SY Connects Transformational Petitioning
2007 e-Government Award Finalists
• e-Petitioning was made possible after winning EU funding from the e-
Participation Initiative to implement e-Petitioning on all channels.
• One of the core tenets of the funding was that the e-Petitioning product could
be replicated across other European countries, and Holland is about to launch
the same e-Petitioning module on the web and is considering DiTV as another
channel option.
• Gary Simpson – Programme Manager e@SY Connects:
• “Petitions can be focused on local issues or relate to national policies and areas
of debate and we believe their introduction will stimulate use of DiTV and
mobile as a means of communication and local participation. This work will be
closely monitored and we hope other local authorities will follow South
Yorkshire‟s lead.”
Any Questions?
Ian Wiebkin
Technical Manager
email: ian.wiebkin@digitv.gov.uk
web: www.digitv.gov.uk
mob: 07981 520981
office: 020 8306 0543