Jayne Bryant MS, Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government
I am pleased to provide an update on the Digital Health Action Planfor the town and community council sector. This has been a key initiative to strengthen the digital readiness of our town and community council sector.
Over the past two years, the Digital Health Project Board, chaired by One Voice Wales, has worked with partners to build digital infrastructure, skills, and support for community and town councils across Wales. The Welsh Government provided up to £300,000 to support the board. I would like to thank the chair of the board, Lyn Cadwallader (Chief Executive, One Voice Wales) for his leadership. His report is attached. The report highlights that building the digital readiness of the sector is a work-in-progress and the two-year action plan played an important part in adding pace and profile to digital working.
I welcome the activity so far which included tailored guidance, support and training. The report reflects that the range of needs across the sector is diverse. For some councils, there is a level of digital readiness which means that guidance and training is sufficient. For others, more tailored support is needed to build understanding, capability, capacity and infrastructure. Supporting this range of needs across over 700 councils is a significant task. The report also reflects that becoming more digitally ready is difficult, especially where users are far from experts. I am grateful to the project board for being pragmatic and agile enough to respond to the context of digital readiness in the sector.
It is Councils’ readiness to learn from, and work with, the broader local government family that is important. The Memorandum of Understanding signed between One Voice Wales and the Welsh Local Government Association provides the right platform to continue to support the digital development of community and town councils.
I want to thank One Voice Wales for leading this important work, and to all those involved in the progress made so far. I will work with One Voice Wales to support and monitor the sector’s digital readiness for the benefit of their communities.