The Swedish Ministry of Industry is the main actor in regard to information society/technology and/or telecommunications policy. The ministry has issued a guiding national policy document, Ett informationssamhälle för alla, 1999: an Information Society for All. This document sets out the over all policies with regard to accessibility, IT confidence and IT competence. The bill was approved in June 2000, and identifies concrete goals and areas of priority for IT policy. These areas are: IT-accessibility, IT-confidence and IT-competence.
The bill provides for a total of SEK 8,300 million in government funding to be invested in ICT infrastructure. Under the funding regulations, the various actors in the market will be required to invest at least as much themselves. This includes a tax deduction aimed at encouraging accession to the broadband network. Government funding will also be made available for regional network development and accession to broadband networks in sparsely-populated areas. In addition, the Swedish National Grid is to undertake the construction of a backbone network on strictly commercial terms. Extension of the network to all municipal centres in Sweden is expected to cost SEK 2,500 million.
The intention expressed in the IT-bill is to transform Sweden into an information society for all - primarily by providing universal accessibility, achieving a broad measure of IT-competence in the community and promoting strong public confidence in the use of IT.
The initiatives are formulated at a top-political level and eGovernment services are most advanced at this level, but the public services directed towards senior citizens takes place at a local (municipalities) or regional (counties) level. These local and regional institutions have a large degree of economic independence and if they are to implement the e-Government services etc referred to in the National plan of action they require financial support from the central government and this is an eternal battle of resources. Consequently, there are some troubles in the conflict of resources between central and local public institutions that potentially can hamper the development of the services. It is a paradox that the initiatives are formulated at a general level and also first and foremost put in practice at the macro level, while the most users need the services at the local (or micro) level. However, most municipalities are interested in delivering good e-devices.
Most of the basic legislation is in print in the social security act and the labour market policy. The legislative discussions at this moment mainly concerns appendices, amendments and supplements in accordance with the yearly follow-ups of the ICT-Bill.
Focus on empowering the elderly are mostly concerned with training, information and skills development. Those training programmes are in practice provided mainly by interest groups, adult education providers, and public libraries. Funding is sourced by public means. The main focus is not with regard to issues of ease of access since these matters at this time are considered insignificant. However, there certainly still is relevancy in this issue with regard to the exposed groups who do not have access to the funding for the equipment needed.
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