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I think the great shame is that despite the efforts of pioneering individuals, authorities, ICELE and Government, there is still little obvious evidence of wide take-up of e-democracy by authorities. Rather than evaluating tools and techniques, should we aspire to creating a research base that unequivocally demonstrates ‘why’ rather than ‘how’ this opportunity is important for Government and authorities – or do you believe this understanding exists already?
i) What led ICELE to assume that it was needed?
ii) How much money was spent designing and promoting it?
iii) Where has it been piloted?
iv) What evaluation of those pilots has taken place?
v) Is it now dead in the water?
This was a publically-funded project and we deserve clear answers.
Re the other projects that you mention, I would like to know whether and how they have been evaluated. Evalauation, when conducted well, involves precisely the 'why' as well as the 'how' questions to which you refer, Stephen. As you know from my own evaluation studies, I am much less interested in whether the kit works than whether it fits in to contemporary political culture.
I think you might be suggesting that the role of ICELE has been to persuade local authorities that e-participation is a good idea. If so, we have a benchmark: when the evaluation team for the national project was set up we analysed a survey of local authorities, exploring the extent to which they had adopted e-participation techniques and intended to do so. It would be useful to revisit that sample and see whether the substantial public money invested in ICELE has contributed to a change in those trends.
How on earth will local authorities respond to the likes of FixMyStreet when they don't know about it? I see their (ICELE) role as linking-in with 21st century *representative* democracy as well as other sector actors such as private industry.
Of course you will want more evaluation, you are an academic...but this doesn't always capture their value, such as their presentation to London councillors just last Saturday.
Actually, I went to a co-hosted event in the North East where they just published some research on the use of ICT for councillors so I think some work is being done...just not being shouted about very loudly.
I think you are being a little unfair to an organisation which has done the most *tangible* work than any other in this arena. How much is being spent on the DEMO-Net project you lead and what real world use are the outputs experiencing?
I was just reading their ePetitioning guide the other day which was really helpful given the forthcoming duty to respond. Looking at VOICE it seems to have about 318 registered communities, which I didn't think was too bad. As Stephen said, ePetitions are still running in Bristol + Kingston.
These discussions need to be held in an open collaborative environment, though, so every angle and perspective can be offered, whether by elected councillors, local gov officers or citizens themselves.
Recent events such as the barcampukgovweb have shown that there are significant numbers of people, active in the social web, or are interested and care about the government of their country. I see no reason why this shouldn't be the case about local as well as central government, and the key is to enthuse these folk into greater participation. To do this will require some relinquishing of control by local authorities of communication channels, amongst other things. It will hurt, but the benefits will be significant.
Having said that, though, why should shouldn't those usual suspects be given a platform and be engaged with. By and large such people *care* and surely we want to encourage caring wherever we can.
I'm ignoring your undertone of 'it hasn't worked in the past, so let's not bother now'. Hardly a forward thinking, positive outlook on things.
Re Demo-net (which I don't lead, incidentally), this is a research project. Its aim is not primarily to make things happen, but to understand what is happening.
Re Voice: I'd prefer to hear the full story from ICELE itself than from an anonymous well-wisher.
As a relative newcomer to the UK, I only know the history of the local eDemocracy projects from a distance but I think it's safe to say (as Stephen Hilton mentions above) that all was not lost. Good stuff is being done – but it’s being done in pockets. Where is the network economics that I would have expected ICELE to foster? For me, where things really seem to be slipping is in taking the eDemocracy agenda any further forward. I’ll be blunt here and suggest that the UK eDemocracy debate is a bit stale, and particularly so around local government.
Surely leading this debate is what ICELE were charged with doing? There is clearly a gap in practice versus expectation that needs to be closed and closed quickly. So is the problem a lack of motivation? I don’t think so, I find the folk at ICELE interested in making change happen. It is more than likely about resourcing and the ability to influence effectively. So money, process and power.
From where I am, the reality would appear to be that the very creation of ICELE effectively side-lined local eDemocracy. I whole-heartedly agree with Stephen (C) in that it seems politic to revist the aims and objectives of the organisation and assess progress against these.
Getting of the topic a little, as for evaluation and assessment, Anon, these are not academic exercises but a core part of every legitimate project. Particularly where public money (accountability) is being used and the project is innovative (knowledge transfer) - which *should* be any eDemocracy project in the local government sector right now.
@Andy - maybe the problem with ICELE is that they are an organisation created do deal with an issue that removes the need for organisations - see Clay Shirky...
Dave - I take your point, but really do think that there's lots that could have been achieved by a well-funded government centre setting out to debate, research, promote and evaluate e-participation. Maybe the organisational structure would need to reflect something more akin to web 2.0 than a government body, but organisations can achieve a great deal if they're clear about what they want to achieve. (And maybe ICELE has achieved what it wants to achieve. This is the problem for me: I'm not at all sure what that is.)
It will be easy to criticise the people running ICELE, but it is important to look at the conditions of their set-up.
1. VOICE - AFAIK it was part of their conditions of their existence that they had to take ownership of, and develop VOICE. A questionable task that inevitably took up resources that they could/should have be focussing elsewhere.
2. Sustainabliity - AFAIK ICELE were told that by March 2008 they had to be self-sustaining, i.e. generating income. This will have influenced their decision-making and their focus away from research and general e-democracy promotion, but TBH I don't really know what towards.
However, enough defence. Even considering points 1 & 2 as a member of their "Strategic Advisory Group" I felt that ICELE had very little sense of direction. As a consequence their resources and opportunities have not been well used.
As regards Shane's comments, to get the nub of things ICELE's real primary purpose was to be a clearing house for ODPM software outputs from the National Project which nobody particularly wanted, or needed. They were handed a poison chalice in the form of the Web-publishing software (which became VOICE). I appreciate they had to be self-sustaining, it was disappointing ICELE ignored all the warnings on VOICE and continued to pursue it vigorously - a lot of taxpayers' money was unnecessarily squandered on this distraction. I think like its predecessor, ICELE's major error was to focus on supplying IT solutions when its real priority should have been to tackle the real barriers to e-democracy take-up in the first place: Lack of business cases, lack of funding; lack of top table buy-in; conflict with the govt efficiency agenda. It seems no-one really knows or can see what ICELE's done with the £1.1m they received, with it's pretty certain the view is they could have achieved a whole lot more.
My view is 2 years on from ICELE and 4 years on from the National Project councils aren't a great deal closer to overcoming these and are, unbelievably, still struggling very much with these basic problems. I'm optimistic the forthcoming new requirement on councils to engage and the general 'personalisation' agenda could revive local e-democracy to an extent. This is the best opportunity ICELE's has ever had - and probably ever will have - to push its agenda, and no better time to start afresh.
(www.e-voice.org.uk/icele) feature online forums?
Good news feed on there anyway...glad to see we are being picked-up.
The discussion forum page speaks for itself.
I do think they have produced some useful guidance over the last year but unfortunately, I don't think it's been publicised and disseminated as widely as it could have been - it's just too passive.
As an example of this, I was at a webcasting user group (active e-democracy practitioners) meeting several months ago and hardly anyone had heard of ICELE which just proved to me that they really haven't been reaching out as widely as they should have been.
I also think that ICELE have missed opportunities where they could have shown real leadership and drive to make e-democracy more mainstream although I'm glad to see that they did recently make a representation to DCLG on local petitioning.
As someone who was involved in a number of National Project pilots (pre-ICELE) I think Carol is right about useful guidance. The UK has produced more guides on e-democracy than any country in the world - so much so that it is difficult to sort through it all and figure out what is most important to read.
Thank you Stephen C. for mentioning local Issues Forums and Stephen Hilton for mentioned e-petitioning and AskBristol. Of the 20+ pilots those projects and councillor blogging are the ones that I mention "sticking" to some degree. Are any of the other pilots still alive in some fashion? Stand up and be counted.
Finally, what I'd live to see is a real investment in the citizen empowerment side of e-democracy. E-Democracy.Org's Issues Forum were a bit lonely as one of the only citizen-based models (not Council controlled) and now that we've spread to four communities (2 pilots plus neighborhood forums in Oxford and Bristol) with almost no budget (can't last forever or our American communities will start subsidizing local democracy in the UK!) I guess there must be some cost-benefit in the approach. In the end, this can't all be on shoulders of local councils (they might need to fund local e-democracy like they support various community and voluntary sector groups/arts/culture/libraries) and if it is, it will remain mostly one-way information dissemination.
Carol says of ICELE that 'they have produced some useful guidance over the last year.' As someone in search of guidance about effective e-participation, could you pass on the best two or three pieces of advice they have offered?
Steve - You say that 'The UK has produced more guides on e-democracy than any country in the world - so much so that it is difficult to sort through it all and figure out what is most important to read.' Which one do you think is the most important - and why?
From the outside, it seems that resources have been diverted into having an ICELE presence on the European conference circuit, and other displacement activities, while it loses touch with its LA roots.
The original local e-Democracy National Project had a well advertised presence on the web, encouraged blogging on its homepage and had a detailed account of its budget spend on the pilot projects, together with board minutes.
I remember being a little disappointed that once we had published the very considered national evaluation of the Local e-Democracy Project - Bristol and I (and many other highly committed people) seemed to be ‘dropped’ from the ongoing ICELE work programme.
Carol, Shane and others were invited, at a later stage, to join the ICELE reference group - but perhaps this was too little too late?
Maybe the evaluation findings caused difficulties for a few people in Government? Maybe there wasn’t enough funding to keep everyone engaged… maybe it was a clash of personalities… who knows or cares?
Whilst ICELE’s focus did seem to move onto European travel, sorry I mean projects, Connecting Bristol became interested in digital inclusion - and I see this as an area where local authorities and their partners can make a significant difference. Can you imagine being a young person at school without Internet access at home? Can you imaging searching or applying for a job?
I was always very struck by Stephen C’s observation that more politics is talked in your average football forum than in ‘official’ e-democracy sites and that e-democracy wouldn’t be democratic if it remained the preserve of the chattering classes (I hope I haven't taken too many liberties here Stephen).
I think the rise of user generated content; social media; blogs; personal and professional online networks; photo, music and video sharing sites (the legal ones of course); maps and drawings and other user-friendly interfaces are only now starting to democratize e-democracy.
What a great time it would be to launch an e-democracy national project!
Stephen H
Sigh... yes. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a model for supporting individual organisations to innovate, and then capture that innovation and knowledge so it can be replicated and extended. Stealing a bit from David Cameron (gulp!) but it's a linux model of government innovation.
Re your comments about ICELE: as a relative outsider to the the goings on at that time, it strikes me as quite odd that the skills and experience of e-democracy pioneers such as Bristol and Camden were not given a central role in determining the ICELE agenda.
1) What was it for? (I think that has pretty much been answered)
2) What is it for? And how does this link to its current strategies and approaches?
3) What SHOULD it be for? Linked to this: what is going to happen to it in the future?
4) How much has it cost and where did it all go? (is 1.1m accurate?)
5) Stephen, how long into the project were the evaluations conducted (was it sufficient)?
I think most of us would argue that some good has come out of the project (several positives mentioned above), but at what overall cost? Both financial costs (also the loss/distraction of time and other resources) and from the consequences of things that haven't worked as well as was initially hoped. It's high time that an evaluation is done (I wonder why one hasn't been done yet?) so that we can learn and improve. To the people who were involved in the initial Local E project, and for those linked to ICELE, I have a question: if there was one thing you would change in hindsight - what would it be?
Scott
Re question 5: THe evaluation team felt very frustrated by the time schedule. We were appointed after the projects were underway and had to produce our evaluation reports within a very short time - I think it was four months. All of the evaluation reports made it clear that this was not long enough to evaluate the effects of the projects. We could only examine intentions and initial strategies. I should add that the report mentioned in post 28 was very positive about the projects it looked at. We were congratulated when we submitted the report for providing an excellent and original analysis. Mary Reid, who headed the national project, said that it was a very interesting and illuminating study. But we were never told when the decision was made to remove the report from the national project's website and stop its circulation.
Re 4: I wonder whether this is a question for Parliament's Public Accounts Committee and/or the Audit Commission.
But for these last few days of my guest blogger role, I wonder whether we might move on to something more positive? I'll be starting a new thread later today.
I've found the ICELE site a useful collection of documents. It's messy and far from comprehensive, but it would be useful if it inspired a well-organised resource of e-democracy/local e-democracy info in the UK. I'm going to take this thought over to UKIE and askthe folk there what they think ICELE should be doing (in a positive stylee).
However, my big bugbear follows from carol and Ann's comments. The first thing I need from ICELE is an archive of the info, docs and links generated by the Local e-democracy national project: http://www.edemocracy.gov.uk/
ICELE say that they haven't been able to wrest this URL from the government. Who owns it? Could we have it? I would look after it.
I am wondering why this is, given the huge savings in time and money, and the gains in transparency, that such projects have repeatedly demonstrated. The case study list is, frankly, pathetic. Do others share my concerns about this?
There are two points here:
1. This is a new world, there is still much to understand, and the role of a body like ICELE is potentially vital: it can collate and publicise the experience and good practice of all the work being done whether it is by grant-funded projects or by other providers.
2. All innovation eventually reaches a stage at which we have to find out whether it can survive because it provides something that people really want and therefore will pay for. We have been combining face-to-face and web-based engagement since 1999 without any grant funding from anyone. Like others we have simply designed and delivered products and services that fill a need.
The evidence is that online engagement can do things that more traditional forms of engagement cannot. Restricting the reporting of what is being done risks both narrowing how people think about the use of these new technologues, and people thinking that online processes can only survive if they are extravagantly subsided.
http://tinyurl.com/5a75u7
I reported on the results of this research recently - from what I can tell there were only 44 responses so were can only draw very general trends out of this. I quote from my article:
"The survey participants were asked ‘Which of these do you think are relevant?’ and given a list of issues which included the following:
- Lack of public demand of e-Participation?
- Bad marketing of online calls-to-action?
- Lack of public belief that e-Participation can facilitate change?
- Lack of interest in democracy and local issues?
Around half of the respondents apparently answered ‘Yes’ to all of the above.
In terms of actual usage of eParticipation tools such as those mentioned earlier – and we underline again these figures must be treated with caution – the research found very limited take-up. More positively, those who reported using them did, they said, generally find them useful. But when participants were asked they had used these tools themselves as local residents, most clicked ‘no’. "
As mentioned above, there was a survey commissioned as part of the national project. It was the job of the evaluation team to analyse it. Why did ICELE not go back to the original sample? The more I hear about this project, the more disappointed I'm left feeling.
On a more constructive note, I've started a new thread on what practitioners want from researchers. Do contribute.
“The evaluation found much had been accomplished in the 4 projects we focused on. Over their one year lifetime project staff were recruited, suppliers contracted, applications implemented, working practices and processes examined and e-democracy tools launched to be used by the public. In three of the four projects the e-democracy
tools had been used by hundreds of citizens, and showed early signs of impacting on decision-making.”
So, not all negative (@Stephen H ). But one of our main recommendations was;
“We recommend further evaluation of projects that are continued, particularly to guide ongoing monitoring and evaluation by councils themselves. This should include methods to identify the value of online dialogue and monitor the impact on decision-making. “
As far as I could see, this report was not widely circulated and is now really only visible from Napier’s website (thanks to Ella for this). No one came back to ask how to move forward, no one took any notice of the recommendation (or at least to me this is what it seemed like).
So what is the use of ICELE – not much.
Moving on to Demo-net. Anon (why is he/she anon?) said that “the DEMO-Net project you lead and what real world use are the outputs experiencing?”. As Stephen said he does not lead this European network of excellence, I do and, given anon’s statement, I feel the need to respond. Demo-net is a four year project funded by the European Commission. Its aim is to establish a sustainable European virtual centre of excellence in the area of eParticipation research, that will become the focal point of eParticipation research activities in Europe. Quite a big commitment and with 20 partners!
It had a slow beginning, as do all European projects – it is a multi-disciplinary network and it took time to understand the different disciplines involved - their vocabulary and their methods. But I think we will all agree that an interdisciplinary approach is vital for eDemocracy research. (Which was one of the reasons I moved from Napier to Leeds to set up the Centre for Digital Citizenship with Stephen.) Demo-net has produced some interesting reports, for example on the state of eParticipation research and on the potential usefulness of emerging technologies such as argument visualisation – these 2 reports (Demo-net D5.2.2 and D4.2 can be found at http://itc.napier.ac.uk/ITC/publications.asp#Te... - again thanks to Ella).
This coming year we move forward within Demo-net with a new research agenda and (this should please Stephen H) one of our priorities is Inclusive eParticipation which is focusing on the growing multi-cultural and multi-ethnic shape of our society and the need for inclusion in public engagement.
So Demo-net definitely has a future in Europe.
Why not createing real bridges between cultures, that are working for the common aims?
I am totally amazed, how the "canonized" e-participation research and science is putting a huge amount of effort to the tEchnological side of e-participation, and lacking the direct and fruitful contacts with those, who could be the fire and soul of e-participation, and working on the lower end of the issue.
I think, this is showing the model of power, culture and the classical characteristics of language inclusion, created by science..."some Demo-net experts could prove this fact, when they try to make community development NGO's involve in e-participation project (right now with the 3rd sector kickoff meeting tomorrow in Prague) they might not even got answers, because the e-participation speaking an artificial language!"
It can not be questioned, that the sucess of e-participation is based on participation of the people, which is traditionally helped by community developers and workers, realizing the power and responsibility of citizenship..
In this case, it is not the proper task (from my opinion), or not the forward looking effective solution to support the spread of e-part. by networks of excellence and similar old-fashioned institutions from European money, if it is not binded together with the massive involvement of third sector.
By the way, as I see ICELE, it is some kind of institution, which is binded into technologies one way (not as eduaction in England, by the adoption of open standards) and providing valuable knowledge services on various levels (but only in English). I can not add anything other to the financial effectivnes. I just see it old fashioned at the networking age..
We did do some work with what became the VOICE product, and although it would not have been our first choice of platform, we and other councils like Essex have used it effectively to support community dialogue in our area. The problem we and others had with this is that the idea of developing publicly owned software to do e-participation overtook the reason we were doing it in the first place as far as central government was concerned. Bristol's e-Participation guide and other publications like Shane's forthcoming Civic Surf booklet and video show where there a wide range of free or cheap tools already in the marketplace. What we need is support in (a) guiding us on the best tools for what we want to do and (b) giving a convincing case for members and officers to step into cyberspace.
Maybe he is ready to jump into the fire and offer an alternative or will he merely snipe at whatever else comes about. I have used ICELE as a good point of reference and it does hold lots of the reports and evaluations that have attempted to shape the agenda.
I think if the Government does not offer real alternatives to democracy the traditional way and ensure that these have teeth then it will all be a waste of time in trying to really get politicians to engage with people. I think if ICELE is closed then the message is loud and clear about what Government really thinks about the technology and democracy.
On P. Smith's more interesting comment about the need for Government to offer 'real alternatives' to traditional forms of democracy, I am far less pessimistic than he seems to be. It strikes me that governments (and would-be governments) of all kinds are trying to work their way through the problem of how to make political engagement more meaningful. That they have rejected uncritical propaganda in favour of technocratic e-democracy and stopped investing in applications that seem to have limited value (Blog-in-a-box, for heaven's sake!) does not mean that they have disengaged from the challenge of democratising representative democracy. I think that in the run up to the next UK general election and after it we shall see more technologically-enhanced democracy experiments.
Thank you for your response. I concur with your point that the next UK general election will be the most technologicaly-enhanced yet, however this does not address the need to have technology in action for our representatives outside of elections. I feel that this is what the Governemtn is turning its back on.
Similarly, I guess ICELE has failed to reignite the debate in that respect and kind of hoped that there would be e-petitions with meaning all over the country now rather than the wash out that is No.10 petitions and lots more. I don't know how much money they got but they obviously could have done a lot more. My point is just that, that Government needs to invest in meaningful progress in using technology rather than creating a vacuum as seems to be the case.
We need real dialogue with meaning rather than no encouragement from the centre. We need real purpose in making things happen, no matter what the consequences may be because without risk there will be caution resulting in a lack of ambition, trust and belief in what is happening, otherwise we might as well have 'Big brother reality' situation for politics and no real substance. I don't know what blog-in-a-box is but on the issue of bloggin, how the hell do the electorate find blogs of their local representatives, if they even exist, without some form of national directory. This is the sort of thing ICELE should have been doing as a pont of entry to the uninitiated.
The only way to make political enagagement more meaningful is to ensure that it is for the masses and not just the political and/or educated elite who have the access. We need to empower real people, not just those already engaged, and we need to empower the neanderthal politicians, who lets face it are hardly representative of our society. Government should be developing access to things that offer this such as through the use of languages and in our community centres and youth clubs. There is no point having a policy of access to technology if there is nothing there for them to really influence the environments in which they live.
Government is clearly not serving the masses but continuing to serve themselves. I fear the technology agenda may be discouraged in the short term and then governments will be playing catch up in being reactive rather than proactive in encouraging debate, untiy and real imaginative governance for the future. I hope I am wrong but am not optimistic for the immediate future. Afterall what good is a local or national petition if the election is years away and they don't need to listen.
In the letter, the Minister stated, “I would like to place on public record my Department’s gratitude for all of the good work ICELE has undertaken during the stewardship of you and your colleagues, Cllr. Bill Brookes and Cllr. Mary Reid, and to your support staff during the programme’s life-span.
I recognise that ICELE has taken forward the work of several components of the local e-Government programme including the Local e-Democracy National Project and disseminated these through your award winning website. In addition, ICELE has won some European funding to enhance understanding and good practice around eParticipation and ensured that assistance to local authorities has been available on the complex issue of local e-democracy when required.
However when ICELE was established, CLG gave a commitment of funding up to 31 March 2008 with a key objective for the Centre to “build a model for long-term sustainability beyond the programme life-span”. Regrettably, sustainability has not been demonstrated despite the successful bids for EU grants.
My Department remains committed to encouraging the use of ICT for empowerment in partnership with others to facilitate and enhance local democracy. As part of the Government’s work on the forthcoming Community Empowerment White Paper, we are actively considering how best to utilize new technologies to support community empowerment. ICELE has been very active in responding to recent consultations on a number of issues linked to the forthcoming White Paper and these have been gratefully received. However, in looking at this broad agenda, we have to assess the value, sustainability and potential benefits that other organisations could also offer in taking forward the work in this area.
In conclusion, I am of the opinion that ICELE, as a sponsored entity of CLG, should cease operations on the 30 June 2008 [other than core staffing support activities related to the Review]. I have instructed officials to conduct a further review in partnership with ICELE on the tools and products produced or managed by the Centre. This review will also seek to establish how best any successful elements of ICELE’s work might be taken forward and how sustainability might be achieved.
Finally, I hope that Lichfield District Council and all other users of the local e-democracy tools will continue to play a role in taking the agenda of empowerment using ICT forward. Improving public services and strengthening democracy by encouraging active citizenship is a shared political goal and offers real opportunities to revive our civic society. Your continued support and enthusiasm for making this happen at the local level, either through your blogging as a local councillor or through your advice and guidance to others as Chair of ICELE, is testament to your understanding and leadership over the past two years.”
For information:
• ICELE was officially launched in October 2006 by Communities and Local Government Minister, Angela Smith M.P., at the United Nations CIAPR Conference.
• CLG has provided core funding to ICELE of £386,000 for the Centre’s activities over the past two years and £234,000 to make the VOICE product fit for purpose.
• The Review of the ICELE portfolio will be conducted to investigate how best to take forward any of the tools currently being used. We cannot however continue to indefinitely support non-sustainable or non-viable e-democracy products or tools for which there is no demonstrated need. No decision will be made in respect of any of the tools and products until this has been completed.
• CLG, in partnership with other Government Departments, are actively considering how best to promote and utilize new technologies to support community empowerment as one of the strands in the forthcoming Community Empowerment White Paper.
Scott
To all of us outside Britain, ICELE was an example ("role model") we often used when we wanted to convince authorities that government backing of e-democracy is already happening somewhere and it's about time to do the same. And yes, it did offer us a resource point of reference. So, what example do we now offer to other countries? It's not a happy development.
On another note:
1. It seems that we now have so many free web based tools that we don't know what to do with them. So, we should move away from software/tool development and into concrete political methodology coupled to solid communication values and strategies. Sound project management is paramount also.
In short: More practice-less theory (we have enough of this, how about putting them to test now?)
2. It never stops to amaze me, when we talk about e-democracy projects, the lack of sound and comprehensive communication (I would say "marketing" if it wasn't a bad word for some) campaigns to back them up. We need to get people to know about a project, we need to educate them, we need to make them interested and then sustain this interest all the way through. I have very rarely seen a project which deals adequately with this thinking, let alone prescribes a sufficient budget (european commission projects are notorious for this oversight). I will gladly stand corrected on this.
So, perhaps a new "ICELE" would after all have quite some new and interesting work to do apart from re-inventing the wheel.