ICL: London Borough of Lewisham unveils 'TellyTalk'
in local Sainsbury's Savacentre
-- ICL Video-Conferencing kiosks to provide greater
access to public services
The London Borough of Lewisham and ICL today
announced the installation of a video-conferencing
kiosk in Lewisham Sainsbury's Savacentre, to allow
local residents to enquire about a range of public
services, such as council tax or housing benefit
without having to visit the town hall.
The initiative, named 'TellyTalk', is part of a
European-funded project designed to use the latest
information technology and communications to support
local communities.
Lewisham is the first local authority in the country
to use video conferencing technology -- provided by
ICL - to give council information to residents and
follows the recent announcement by the Government of
its intent to provide one quarter of all local
government services on-line by 2002.
Designed particularly for the elderly and deaf, the
kiosks developed by ICL will provide residents with
an easy-to-use, face-to-face communication link with
council staff at the touch of a button.
Users of the TellyTalk kiosks can obtain general
information on the borough's housing and benefits
service using a touch screen. If they require
specific advice, they can press a button to
video-link to an adviser. Once an interview has
started, all the technology is controlled remotely by
the interviewer back at the Town Hall.
Lesley Burr, head of benefits, London Borough of
Lewisham, said: "We expect at least 40 per cent of
our users to be aged 60 and upwards. Therefore, we
have specifically designed these kiosks with the
elderly in mind. Also, older people are not so mobile
and Lewisham wanted to provide the elderly and
handicapped with an easy means of communication with
the local revenues and benefits office."
She added: "TellyTalk encapsulates remotely the
process of the council office visit -- the face to
face interview, the completion of forms and the
exchange of documentation."
Derek Sayers, managing director of ICL's Electronic
Business Services division, said: "ICL is pioneering
the use of kiosks as a means of providing local
government information to the public - utilising
technology to enrich the life of the local
community."
Burr continued: "TellyTalk makes business sense. The
kiosks enable Lewisham to maintain experts at a
central headquarters, but make them available to our
citizens throughout the borough. We gain the added
advantage of having a complete audit trail of
correspondence and information which can be captured
using the IT resources of the kiosk."
Notes to Editors:
ICL is a leading supplier of IT systems and services.
Operating in over 70 countries and employing over
19,000 people, the Group's revenues for 1997 were GBP
2,477.1 million generating a pre-tax profit of GBP
30.0 million. The company implements IT systems for
major projects and provides innovative services to a
range of industries covering amongst others, retail,
finance, travel, telecoms and utilities together with
education, local and central government sectors. Its
services include outsourcing, helpdesks, network
services, inter/intranets, electronic commerce,
interactive kiosks, smart card systems, digital
cities and web sites. ICL plans to relist on the
stock market in 2000.
Relevant websites: http://www.icl.com
About TellyTalk:
The customer unit of TellyTalk is contained in a
specially adapted, private room. It comprises a
conference monitor for video only, viewing camera,
microphone, information system with data screen,
printer and document scanner -- all built into one
unit. The video screen is separated from the data
screen to reassure people who may not be used to
computers, facilitate signing and allow frame
transmission at a faster rate that a normal PC. The
project involves the Lewisham Revenues and Benefits
Department and its technology partners; ICL, for its
kiosk expertise; Oracle, to help integrate database
forms for the system; and the Technology Store, for
its video-conferencing and application integration
experience.
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