Background: Project Involve has been working in the East of England getting Parish and Town Councils online with good quality, sustainable websites, which serve the needs of their communities.

Outputs and deliverables: The practical things that are being developed are:

• Guidance for parishes to have their own websites, and more generally use ICT and online services more effectively.
• A business case for principal authorities to help get their parishes online
• A range of training materials – online, offline and face to face. These are being developed and tested in conjunction with county training partnerships.
• Marketing materials aimed at parishes (to get them online) principal authorities
  (to provide help) and the public (to get them using public sector sites)
• Best practice for parish councils on what to include on their sites and ways of making them easy to find and promoting their website to their constituents
• A free “.gov.uk” domain name for Parish or Town Councils who want it
• A regional signpost to existing Parish or Town Council websites.

Implications: Project Involve links with a number of key central government policies and initiatives:

• Increasing take up of public sector e-services by at least 100%
• Using ICT to empower communities as a way of both bridging the digital divide and helping groups operate more effectively (i.e. having digital champions who can support others in their community)
• Using intermediaries as a way of getting service delivery closer to the community
• Local Government re-organisation – thinking strategically and acting locally
• Local Area Agreements, Local Strategic Partnerships etc.

All of these point to a stronger role for Parish and Town Councils but with a challenge to modernise in order to take up that role.

To find out more about Project Involve and for information on County based training events contact your County Association of Local Councils.