Totally Online Barnsley

The former mining town of Barnsley has set itself the target of getting 100% of its citizens online by 2012.

The “Totally Online Barnsley” project is about more than just access to technology: it also seeks to impart the skills to use computers with confidence and up employability.

Barnsley is home to a quarter of a million people. Between 1984 and 1995, some 20,000 people, lost their jobs in the pits as Britain’s coal industry collapsed. The closures hit other businesses like a domino and unemployment reached endemic levels. Generations of young people continue to leave school to look for work, opportunities and a future in a region that is yet to recover from the recession of the 1980s.

Barnsley council's leader, Stephen Houghton wrote the government’s review of the causes and solutions to worklessness and the ‘Future Jobs Fund’, the programme to provide 150,000 jobs, training or work experience opportunities for every job-hunting 18-24-year-old was one of its outcomes.

Along with publicly-funded work placements, Barnsley council is staking much of its future on the digital revolution: 80% of South Yorkshire will be connected to next generation broadband over the next three years.

The council’s chief executive, Philip Coppard is passionate about the impact the information society can have on the economy and on people’s lives, so the challenge is to overcome its human capital: 40% of South Yorkshire’s adults are digitally excluded.

The council has secured £3m European and Government funding to develop and train a network of digital mentors: and Sheffield Hallam University is researching models of individual and community engagement. As the region’s largest employer, the council is also leading the way by making digital literacy a core competence for its own staff: it is considering training staff during office hours, allocating email addresses to every employee and launching a “salary sacrifice scheme” to encourage employees to buy kit.

21 of the 400+ people that the council has hired under the Future Jobs Fund have been earmarked to work as digital outreach trainers. In its next push, the council will seek to change the culture within hospitals, colleges, primary and secondary schools, universities and to encourage charities and businesses to do more to up the digital skills of staff and clients.

Barnsley Council's principal European and regional strategy officer, Martin Cantor, says: “In Barnsley we've chosen to set ourselves this very ambitious target... What we mean by 100 per cent online is that everybody in the borough understands what is in it for them and has the confidence and the skills to get where they want to be in the digital world.”

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