About the Connected Cumbria Partnership
The Connected Cumbria Partnership (CCP) is made up of the six district and borough councils, Fire, Police and the County Council, as well as other invited public sector and not for profit organisations from around the region. The partnership was formed to accelerate the introduction of effective service modernisation across all public services, by the creation of a regional strategy for Cumbria.
Cumbria is a vast area that is geographically remote, with urban centres and low levels of population, raising difficulties for local government customers, in accessing services conveniently, and challenges public bodies to provide services comprehensively.
The partnership has identified two strategic imperatives for co-operative working across its area:
- Delivering services that tackle exclusion and poverty, in both urban and remote rural areas to consistent standards.
- Obtaining best value, from the information technology market in the area, which is less active and competitive than in many other parts of the United Kingdom.
Ultimately the delivery of e-government, including the essential development of e-citizenship will provide considerable benefits in improved access to information and services for those who live in Cumbria and communications between Cumbrians and the rest of the world.
Co-operative working
In relation to interconnectivity, the partnership faces a major challenge in establishing a network infrastructure to support customer access and traffic levels that will be required by 2006.
The partnership represented at board level on the Cumbria ICT Broadband Initiative (CIBI). CIBI is a partnership drawn from the Cumbrian public and private sectors which, along with the North West Development Agency (NWDA), is seeking to provide 95% of the county with broadband access at metropolitan rates. The partnership sees this is a necessary precursor to delivery of e-government services across the Cumbria. The partnership is fully involved with the Northwest e-government Group (NWeGG) which is the regional body driving forward e-government and is represented on the NWeGG steering group, programme board, strategic support board and sub-groups (CCP is recognised by NWeGG as the sub regional group for Cumbria).
In addition to e-government developments in individual local authorities, the partnership is exploring co-operative working between the organisations to improve address management/geographical based systems and data, which will be fundamental to future customer centred e-government services.