Telecom and ICT applications have been referred to in "general" social or welfare policy programmes to a significant extent. As already mentioned, the National plan of action against poverty and social exclusion addresses most of these issues. The main focus is on empowering older people and not so much directed towards accessibility issues (connecting and financial aid), as these elements are considered less important.
The national plan summarises quality of life by way of ICT as the possibility of communicating, access to eGovernment services (equal access to the public sector and public information services) and also the possibility of staying in the labour market as long as possible. Access to the communicating technologies (the infrastructure) is not a widely discussed topic as most people (incl. senior citizens) have the access. The plan is to create services and provide access to digital resources at the Internet + applications that can help disabled people use these resources. There has been a lot of much on eGovernment in Denmark and all ministries, municipalities, agencies etc have their own web-page where the users can find all relevant information as well as inquiries regarding financial support, access to schemes etc.
All public institutions offer their services on the Web and this is done without formal laws, but solely on declarations of intent. The main problem today is to encourage people (especially marginalised groups) to use these services and this is being done through the allocation of resources from the public fiscal budget to initiate education and information events. Furthermore there is now, in continuation of the eGovernment initiatives, more focus on creating more user friendly web-pages and applications that can make these web-based offerings more usable for senior citizens and disabled people. Finally there are some private initiatives planned some of the private telecommunication companies in Denmark are currently experimenting with how to use mobile technologies to create services for elderly- and disabled people.
There are many lobby groups representing the interest of the senior citizens in Denmark and ICT is a major topic for these groups even though they are also preoccupied with more general issues.
Finally, using ICT to stay in the labour market is also seen as something that can potentially enhance the quality of life (and in addition keep a large tax base and help the likely future problem of missing labour as a consequence of the demographic development). The Danish Ministry of labour has allocated financial resources that are aimed at supporting enterprises that employs disabled people as well as companies that are adopting e-work schemes that help senior staff to obtain a more flexible retirement process by enabling them to work part-time at home. As mentioned, this programme is maintained and governed by the Danish Ministry of Labour and the programme is running between 2001 and 2003.
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