Financially embattled Leicester City Council is preparing to equip 54 councilors with Apple iPads next May at a cost of £40,000.
The council had warned in July that it may need to shed as many as 1,000 jobs as it sought to find savings of £100m. The council has said that four councillors are trialling iPads at a cost of nearly £700 each. Councillor Ross Grant, one of those trialling he iPad, told the BBC that the move was part of an IT drive to generate savings.
"So if we could get a few hundred staff working from home using this kind of technology, then that's where we'd make huge savings," said Grant. PCR earlier reported that the Beeb was itself looking to replace PCs with Apple iPads, a move which has also drawn criticism.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Leicester councillor Sarah Russell said that the trial was designed to see if the iPad would allow them to improve "the way we work" and pointed towards a potential £90,000 savings a year. ”I have a laptop but it is quite heavy, meaning it is awkward to take to several meetings in a day," said Russell.
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