This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
Listen
Public services go interactive
07/09/2004
A pilot project which will allow people to access information and public services from their armchairs through their digital TV was launched today.
Interactive digital television (iDTV) will be available through Sky. There are six partner organisations involved in the pilot - the Executive, West Lothian Council, Dumfries and Galloway Council, Young Scot, NHS Health Scotland and StartHere.
The pilot will let you:
* Find out what's on in Dumfries and Galloway and enter a competition to win a weekend break there;
* Vote on the most important neighbourhood environmental issue in your area of West Lothian, or request a call-back from a NET adviser;
* Find out how much you have spent on smoking since you started, and what giving up smoking will do for you. Want to give up? Request a brochure or a call back from NHS Health Scotland's Club Smoking advisers;
* Find out how you can save money locally with your Young Scot card. If you haven't got a card, fill in your details, and we'll send you an application pack
* Find out what StartHere does, and where to learn more
* and tell us what you think of the services available
Launching the pilot at the Chill Out Zone in Bathgate, the Deputy Minister for Finance and Public Services Tavish Scott said:
"We are committed to the delivery of excellent public services through a range of channels. More people in Scotland now have digital TV at home than have access to the internet. We want to test television's potential for delivering public sector information and services.
"The research project attached to this six month pilot will be crucial. We want to know how easy it is for the public to use. We want to know what services they would like to be able to access and whether they would use them. We also want to know what the service providers think about it.
Councillor Willie Dunn, Convener of the Enterprise and Development Committee, said:
"We are delighted that we have been able to work in partnership with the Scottish Executive, Young Scot, NHS Health Scotland and Dumfries and Galloway Council to develop this new channel of communication for our customers.
"Interactive digital television underlines our commitment to developing innovative ways to engage with our communities and make information and services even more accessible to our customers.
"Recent examples include: paying council tax and rent on line, improving the efficiency by eProcurement (purchasing goods and services on line), emailing Business Rates bills and our website - westlothianonline.info - recently won a national award for useability."
The pilot will cost £375,000 in total over the 6 months of the project.
This figure includes the design and build, hosting, access to SKY platform, broadcast bandwidth, a content management system to ensure material is kept up to date, creation and management of an interactive database and an in-depth research study.
The UK has the highest take up of digital TV in the world - 10 million
households and in Scotland, around 41 per cent of Scottish households have access to Sky, Freeview or cable (Sky has around 31 of that 41 per cent).
The pilot material has been designed on a series of templates that have
been through the rigorous testing process. Any future strategy for rolling out the project will depend on the research findings but future partners will benefit from cost savings due to the template-based design.