THE CONNEXIONS CARD Wendy Violentano Head of Connexions Card Unit – DfES 24 th September 2003

Connexions Card – Current Position Over 300,000 Cards issued 1600 Learning Centres signed up 2500 Organisations visited 17,000 unique reward redemptions 6000 Discounts available 500,000 Website hits per month 1,000 cardholder logins per day

Pilot and new activity Joint Local Authority/Connexions cards – Access to concessionary travel – Cashless Catering – E-Voting – Leisure Pass Street Kiosks Extended Age range card (Whole school solution) Proof of Age (including retailer readers)

Further Development potential Access Control Auto enrolment Transport – Cashless ticketing, Railcard Portable personal learning record E-Purse And many more

WP5 – National Smartcard Project Why involve a central Government Department? – Access to thinking of OGDs interested in developing smartcards – Reducing the burden of accessing each Department individually – Exploiting investment already made by Treasury What is in it for DfES? – Exploitation of the technology we purchased – Providing more services to young people – Meeting our aims and objectives

WP5 – continued What is in it for our project partners? – A ready made platform for smartcard applications – 1 million potential cardholders – Access to latest Government thinking – Good PR? Which activities does it cover? – Multi-application pilot in Doncaster – Kettering Leisure Pass – Potential E-Voting pilot – Learning how to combine central and local Government applications – Joined up thinking

National Project – lessons so far It isn’t easy! Healthy suspicion between local and central bodies but each can learn from the other There is massive investment going on which can be maximised if we work jointly Branding is always an issue There is hope……

Thank you & Questions ?