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By Will Sturgeon, 15 February 2005 13:20

NEWS UK IT bosses have heaped praise upon the Home Computing Initiative, which intends to get more computers into homes across the country, with many saying they are now considering launching such schemes for their staff.

Many hope the PCs, intended primarily for personal use and leased on a cost-effective basis by staff through salary deductions, will also help breed a culture of remote working which many employers believe will motivate staff and enable them to become more efficient in their jobs.

Last week, Kent County Council announced a £2m budget which it will use to provide PCs for its 34,000 staff.

It follows in the footsteps of Newham Borough Council in London.

Richard Steel, head of ICT at Newham, told silicon.com: "Newham was the first council in the country to implement the scheme and probably the first organisation to implement a scheme that fully complies with the law."

And Steel had some advice for other organisations looking to get involved.

"The scheme is a minefield to set up, and we had to abandon our first attempt, having been challenged by one of our own Trading Standards staff," he said.

"We now have a thriving scheme up and running. A major problem is that schemes of this nature are covered by the Consumer Credit Act. Local Authorities are the regulatory authority for the CCA so we, of all people, cannot disregard the provisions - although many other organisations may not worry about some provisions such as the ability for staff to cancel the agreement and return goods. If this happens to us, it is a cost to the public purse."

"Public Authorities therefore need to apply to the OFT for exemption from some provisions of the CCA," he said.

Drawing upon his own experience, Steel expressed surprise at the size of the budget put aside by Kent Council.

"I was a little surprised that Kent County Council is apparently investing so much public money in a staff benefit scheme. Newham ensures that its set-up and administration costs are included in the total to be recovered from salary sacrifices."

One boss who said he is discussing a similar scheme is Simon Norbury, director of ICT at Westminster City Council, though he said PCs won't be provided only to sit gathering dust.

Norbury said: "This is a good scheme to allow people to upgrade their computers at low cost. We are working up a scheme as a staff benefit but may limit the need to provide PCs at home and work for occasional home users."

Another IT boss planning to launch an HCI scheme is Steve Anderson, European IT partner at property consultancy Davis Langdon.

"We are planning to offer it here as part of our benefits package. The only implications are the overhead on firms to provide it and the potential for staff to target the IT helpdesk for support requests rather than the supplier. The vendors have done a good job, on paper, of creating a managed service for organisations embarking on HCI and I am sure that this will encourage greater take-up."

Other IT chiefs praised the 'computers for all' ideal of providing PCs for those households who previously have seen such technology as prohibitively priced.

Phil Young, head of IT operations at Amtrak, told silicon.com: "I think providing schemes for those staff who are unable to fund PCs in the home is an excellent idea. I also think that if this was linked with some form of computer-based training offering that this may also have benefit to businesses."

Others agree that the benefits of the scheme become easier to quantify when there is also an obvious knock-on benefit to the organisation and the employee's working life. But that also means companies must do all they can to ensure the scheme is rolled out securely.

Ian Cohen, IT director at the Financial Times, told silicon.com: "I believe it's a great scheme, so long as it is used in conjunction with a set of well managed remote access and teleworking policies from the IT department. This is essential to ensure the correct levels of security, virus control and patch management are maintained for anything that connects remotely to the corporate network."

"The scheme is good for the company and the employee and should be embraced."