Development of computerisation within the Council of Europe

Recommendation 1294 (1996)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

See Doc. 7493, report of the Committee on the Budget and the Intergovermental Work Programme, rapporteur: Mr Cox. Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 20 March 1996.

Thesaurus

1. Computing facilities and electronic data processing have become essential today in the management of the Council of Europe.

2. In this respect, the Assembly would like to point out that it has considered this question on several occasions, inter alia, in Resolution 696 (1979) on the use of dataprocessing for parliamentary work and in Recommendation 866 (1979) on data protection and dataprocessing facilities for the Council of Europe.

3. In recent years the Council of Europe has installed an infrastructure permitting a decentralised, intercommunicating and high-performance computer system to be developed.

4. While welcoming this rapid progress, the Assembly regrets that the Council of Europe's computer network is hardly accessible to its external partners.

5. Indeed, it takes the view that the information it disseminates to the public and to its partners (national parliaments, international organisations, non-governmental organisations, associations, universities, libraries, etc.) ought to be available on electronic information distribution networks.

6. The Assembly regrets that administrative, financial and human resources allotted to the development of computerisation at the Council of Europe no longer suffice for regular and progressive investment.

7. The Assembly therefore considers that it has become essential for the Council of Europe to be given a genuine information and communications policy involving efficient computerised management facilities appropriate to its needs.

8. The Assembly consequently recommends that the Committee of Ministers:

8.1 provide in the 1997 Council of Europe budget a specific vote for computerisation investments and consider the possibility of drawing up a computer investment programme spanning several years;

8.2 invite the Secretary General to act as quickly as possible:

a to create a Council of Europe information server accessible via computer to the Organisation's various partners;

b to allocate to the Computer and Telecommunications Department the human and budgetary resources required for the development of computerisation at the Council of Europe;

c to complement these measures by a staff training programme to ensure the optimal use of computer tools.