To receive a presentation from the Council’s Economic Development Officer (Michael Warr), highlighting the background, ambitions and workstreams of the West Essex and Eastern Hertfordshire Digital Innovation Zone. The presentation will also include an update on the Superfast Essex broadband rollout programme, covering both completed and planned projects.
With Michael Warr will be Cllr Lion and John Huston.
Minutes:
The Portfolio Holder for Technology and Support Services, Councillor Lion along with Michael Warr (Economic Development Officer) and John Houston (One Epping Forest) gave a short presentation on the West Essex and Eastern Hertfordshire Digital Innovation Zone.
Mr Houston started by asking why was there this focus on digital technology. This was due to feedback from local business and our partners in the public service who have all invested heavily in this technology. Essex County Council would have spent or brought in £100million worth of investment on the superfast broadband network. Digital will also form a key part of the government’s industrial strategy with talk of digital being the next industrial revolution. They were also looking at both internal and external transformation to bring a better service to our customers through better use of digital technology.
Councillor Lion noted that the ‘Superfast Essex Rural Challenge Project’ started up about 4 years ago, when a paper was presented to the Cabinet which received some funding to provide digital capability to our residents. EFDC put in about £84k and got £7.5million from the government to roll out broadband services to rural communities. We wanted to be the best connected district in Essex and had now about 97% connected and expect to reach approximately 99.7% of residents in the near future, which would leave about 207 homes not connected. This was great but his question was, “so what? Having got this, what do we do with it?” They were looking at how to roll out these services to everyone who wanted it and those who did not know how useful it was. This is what can be called external transformation and smarter working.
Mr Warr noted that there were a lot of buzz words floating around but they were keen not to be driven by these buzz words. Their first step was to research the ‘smart agenda’; there was a lot of this for cities but our district was a semi rural area, close to large urban areas such as London and Cambridge, but with our own identity. We cannot be a smart city but want to be a ‘smart place’. We were not necessarily big enough for infrastructure providers to be interested in and we needed to seek a collaborative approach with other district councils and public sector organisations areas involved. So the concept of the Digital Innovation Zone (DIZ) was born which included 5 districts and 10 founding (and potentially) funding partners to start this process. The partnership now includes local government (Broxbourne, East Herts., Epping Forest, Harlow, Uttlesford and Essex County Council), health (Princess Alexandra, West Essex CCG, Essex Partnership University Trust), education (Anglia Ruskin Uni., Epping Forest College, Harlow College and Herts Regional College) and various private and voluntary sector organisations. We might not be a city but we have 212,000 households and close to half a million residents.
They had come up with a work programme structured in to four different areas:
the partnership; the strategy; the infrastructure; and the projects, products and profile.
Some of the projects they were looking into included a common assets register to list and map out all public assets including local government, national government, health, police, highways and education. They were also looking at an open data source a repository of open access public data. They would also be running a series of ‘smart place’ seminars for local stakeholders. They also aimed to raise the profile of the DIZ. They aspired to be the best connected place of its kind.
Councillor Lion noted that this was just a starting point; they were looking at how to take this further and were looking for new ideas. They have already gone out to a number of different players in the industry who were very keen to get involved. So this was just the starting point and would like to have O&S involved. He asked what would you like to be kept abreast of, or know, about the Digital Innovation Zone?
The meeting was then opened up to questions from members.
Councillor Baldwin noted that broadband speeds were quite low in this county compared with other high tech countries such as South Korea. Our infrastructure was old now (laid down in the 1980’s), would it be replaced and who would deliver this as it would be very expensive. Mr Warr noted that the Rural Challenge Project that was due to be completed shortly, delivered the first investment of £7.5million that delivered fibre broadband into the area to around 4,000 properties. Providing fibre broadband to rural premises was expensive but that was the model the supplier used. He could not say anything about the next stage but a similar project would be needed and it should mean that each household could get up to 1GB speed, upload and download. Councillor Lion noted that the development of broadband services was moving quite fast and was being continually upgraded to meet the demands being placed on them. Fibre broadband could handle these speeds, but other technology needs to catch up. Mr Houston noted that there was two questions here the speed of the coverage and the scale of the coverage and would that future proof the district. Officers were looking at this at present. He also noted that there was a lot of investment happening in our area making the most of our infrastructure.
Councillor Janet Whitehouse noted that a list of partners was shown but the VAEF was not on it. Mr Houston replied that some of the voluntary bodies listed would act as a bridge to other bodies. Working with one organisation that would feed out into the wider structure.
Councillor Patel was impressed with our initial investment of £84k being supported by a government grant of £7.5million. He asked how the ‘DIZ’ would filter into our corporate plan, did it feature enough. Also had there been any problems in partnership working so far. Councillor Lion’s initial question of “so what” was a good question to ask as it underpinned everything you were looking to achieve. He was looking forward to see what happens next. Mr Houston said that from the beginning they went out to meet with each of their partners and establish common ground. Everyone was enthusiastic about joining in. This was just the tip of an iceberg; there were so many more things that could be done in the future with this technology. We were at an early stage in our journey. Councillor Patel asked again how the strategy fitted into the corporate plan. Councillor Lion said that they were speaking to David Bailey on how to reflect this into the corporate plan and to make sure some of the things we were talking about are included in the plan, such as ‘Telecare’ emergency services.
Councillor Wixley asked about how the neighbouring districts meshed into this DIZ zone. Mr Houston said that we worked with organisations that were cross border organisations and where there were hard borders but these were not recognised by the public. This was a key area they were looking into; how to manage the border interfaces with service providers such as the NHS.
Councillor Bedford mentioned 5G. Would you consider using us as a pilot area for this technology? Mr Warr replied that they were interested in pushing forward on the 5G agenda, but this was still to be defined in terms of technology and what it might do. They will keep watch for suitable opportunities for 5G in the future and respond when necessary.
Councillor Sartin noted that there would be about 207 properties that were not connected up. Are they all in one area or were they scattered around the district. Mr Warr said that were scattered around the district in small pockets, but this was still being looked into.
The Chairman thanked the officers and Councillor Lion for their presentation and for answering all the questions so thoroughly.