White Paper "The People's Lottery" consultation - Response of the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University

The Prime Minister has stated that the Government "don't believe it would be right to use Lottery money to pay for things which are the Government's responsibilities." It is our belief that computer training for teachers and librarians ought to be part of core spending on education and the library service, and not dependant on the fluctuating proceeds of the lottery (and especially not, as the media have reported, of the Wednesday draw, which are likely to fluctuate more than lottery proceeds as a whole, too). Having said that, spending some extra money on this is better than not spending that money on such training, and if the Government is unwilling to spend money from the consolidated fund on such training, we would see such training as being too urgently needed to be postponed.

We do consider it appropriate that money, which could include lottery money, should be spent on equipping public libraries with web access, and providing for running (and upgrade) costs. The world wide web is now the largest library known to humanity, and it would be entirely appropriate a for access to it to be made available for free in public libraries. Such an upgrade in library facilities from their present level does seem more appropriate for lottery funds than training teachers and librarians to a level of competence that they should already have.

We would also particularly like to suggest that in every library there are facilities to allow all sorts of disabled people access to computing and to the web. This is particularly important as such access is not normally provided by cyber-cafes at present. Providing such facilities could be a crucial ingredient in enabling disabled people to enter the world of work, by allowing them to learn to use technologies that will enable easy communication with non-disabled colleagues. Relevant technologies would include voice synthesis, the possibility of input from braille keyboards, single switch controls for those with very limited motor control, etc.