CBS Pioneering Communities Seminar – feedback and actions

Robbie McGhee Broadband Policy Team Leader Scottish Government

Representatives from CBS pioneer projects and existing community broadband projects gathered at CBS’s Pioneering Communities Seminar on 24th and 25th April.  The seminar was an opportunity for delegates to share their experiences and learning:

“…provided an excellent opportunity to share experiences, challenges and solutions”
Seminar delegate

Seminar delegate

It was also a chance for the newly formed CBS team to gather ideas and feedback on the types of support we will offer to communities.

Here we pull together the feedback and actions from the seminar.  If you’re interested in what was covered, presented and discussed during the two days, take a look at the event write up on the updates page of our website.  You can also watch the presentations  on the digital pages of the Scottish Government website. 

Seminar Evaluation
The seminar was overwhelmingly viewed as a useful event, with 100% of delegates rating it as very or fairly useful, and more than three quarters reporting the seminar completely met their expectations. 

Opportunities to network, hearing more about the pioneer and existing projects, and sharing experiences with other communities were identified as being particularly useful by delegates.  Along with gaining knowledge and learning about technical solutions. 

It’s… reassuring to know that others had to learn the same things so it’s not just an isolated learning curve you face”

Seminar delegate

There was a recognition the seminar agenda was very full, and a lot was covered.  Delegates suggested a number of areas they were keen to have spent more time on, the most common of which were workshops, group work and interactive sessions. 

An Action Plan for CBS
The event was certainly very constructive for CBS, with the feedback from delegates resulting in the following action plan for developing our suite of support for community broadband projects:

CBS Action Plan

• Community broadband roadmap – outlining the key steps of a project
• Business plan template
• More case studies
• Organisational structure guidance and templates
• Community engagement guidance and checklist (including dealing with the press)
• Procurement and tendering guidance and template
• Wayleave guidance and template

For feedback from the lively workshop discussions download the full report here