ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role and experience of agencies in facilitating telework in the two rural case study areas such as UK and Ireland. Attempts to ease telework by agencies in the study areas have been based upon three basic strategies: the provision of access to information and communication technologies (ICT) hardware, ICT and telework training and the marketing of, and outsourcing of work to, teleworkers. Telecottages Wales, with funding from the Welsh Development Agency and European Union DGX, had developed TELEMART, a project aimed specifically at marketing the skills of teleworkers in Wales to organisations. The chapter considers the facilitation of telework in the study areas and rural areas generally and shows that central to the telework facilitation strategies of agencies has been the linking of the demand for, and supply of, telework, even if in practice this proved hard to meet.
