I've cut and pasted below the relevant bit from the budget speech
that Michael Hill just mentioned in his message as I thought people
would be interested to see it. The full text of the speech can be
found at
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/budget99/speech.html
Sarah Ormes - list owner
"Our seventh measure for enterprise.
New targeted tax cuts and public investment to equip all our
companies and all our people for the newest and most decisive
economic challenge of the 21st century - mastering information
technologies, from the PC to the internet, from e-mail to
e-commerce.
This industry is the great driver of world economic growth today.
And Britain can no longer afford to lag behind America.
So today, we allocate an additional half a billion pounds from our
Capital Modernisation Fund to launch a 1.7 billion pound computers
for all initiative, a nationwide effort enlisting schools, colleges
and companies, public and private sectors across the board to make
Britain a leader in the information economy.
Our target is a national network of 1,000 computer learning centres,
one for every community in Britain. They will be in schools,
colleges, libraries, in internet cafes and on the High Street.
A whole new network of computer learning with one purpose only, that
the whole of Britain is equipped for the information age. "
Sarah Ormes
Public Library Networking Research Officer
UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY
Tel. 01225 826711
Fax. 01225 826838
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 10 March 1999 12:44
Subject: 1,700,000,000
>
>I though the list would be abuzz with discussion on the budget
speech
>where it comments on libraries being one of the possible sites for
the
>1,000 community learning centres (driven by 1.7 billion pounds!).
>
>So I'll be first. Have a look at
>
>http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/budget99/speech.html
>
>No further information yet on how this will pan out in reality but
it
>looks hopeful.
>
>Michael
>
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