iT4Communities is 'Centre of Excellence' says ICT Hub Independent Evaluation

iT4Communities has been highlighted as a centre of excellence in the recent independent ICT Hub evaluation report.

The main findings of the ICT Hub report by independent evaluators, Paul Ticher and Andrea Eaves, show that "overall the ICT Hub made considerable progress towards meeting all of its six long-term objectives" and that the ICT Hub had "identified centres of excellence at both national and regional level".

The report identifies iT4Communities as one of the ICT Hub partners who had "earned the right to be regarded as a centre of excellence" saying that it had delivered "significant immediate benefits", along with other partners such as AbilityNet. The main benefit was in the services delivered by the iT4Communities volunteers, many of whom had made a "lasting difference in specific organisations".

The report emphasizes that iT4Communities' volunteer matching results continue to be "impressive" and show a "consistent pattern of growth".

iT4Communities Programme manager, John Davies said: "Paul and Andrea's report shows the great success of the iT4Communities service and all the hard work that the staff have put in, as well as the significant benefit to UK charities that over 5,000 IT volunteers have contributed. Sadly, despite this, Capacity Builders have withdrawn their financial support for iT4Communities and a huge effort is now underway to find alternative funding in order for us to continue to build on our considerable contribution to the voluntary sector."

For an overview of the report read PublicTechnology.net's article. Alternatively you can download the full report (PDF format) from the ICT Hub website.

3rd June 2008