Welcome to VIAG

VIAG is a Dutch membership organization running professional activities. The Society was founded in 1991 as the professional association for ICT managers working in and for the public sector. ICT managers perceived a need for a tightly knit organization of friends and colleagues who could work together for the common good and share ideas and information. They wanted to be able to discuss strategies, problems and policies with other governmental ICT managers. They believed the sharing of knowledge would greatly benefit their members.
The Society is a significant provider of advice and guidance on ICT, e-government and transformational government to local authorities. VIAG offers a growing range of services including publications, conferences and workshops. VIAG provides a widely respected forum for the promotion, use and development of ICT best practice and implementation of local e-government in the Netherlands. The VIAG ‘Denktank’ (advice committee) is a selected group of active members willing to serve on committees to help improve local e-government in the Netherlands.

Members of the VIAG are drawn from local governments as well as managers or consultants from organizations supplying ICT products and services to the public sector, or which support public services in other ways.
Members are officers directly employed in the public sector (non-profit making) and who have a major influence within their organization on matters of ICT strategy, policy and/or delivery functions. Any organization can have more than one full member provided the above requirements are met. Subscriber members are individuals who do not work for public sector organizations but want to enhance the aims of the Society by their contributions. This category can include consultants and managers of commercial organizations that supply the public sector. Subscriber members should note that Society events should not be regarded as sales opportunities unless this has been specifically arranged. Retired members are people who were previously members (of any type) and do not undertake paid work.

The VIAG holds its annual conference in the autumn. It starts at Sunday evening and ends on Tuesday afternoon. The members meeting to vote for the strategic plan and the budgets takes place in the spring. Several workshops are held during the year.

The membership database and the members' handbook contain VIAG contact lists which are published to enable members to network with each other but should not be used for marketing purposes. The handbook contains a list of members with contact details, useful information about the Society, and its services
Members will receive regular email broadcasts from VIAG. VIAG does occasionally allow organizations to contact members by post where it believes the material being sent may be of interest.
VIAG reviews and updates its Strategic Plan annually to keep its goals in line with the needs of members.

By building alliances with international sister organizations, VIAG is providing its members with the opportunity to share with a wider array of government agencies and learn about their approaches to information technology management.

LOLA , the Linked Organization of Local Authority ICT Societies, is the coordinating group for the international affiliations. It is a loose grouping of Associations that share common values. Associations which share these common values will understand the value of working together in a way that will improve the services that are delivered to the Citizen.
At the London International Workshop entitled “Learning From Each Other”, it was agreed that a closer working relationship between individual Local Authority ICT professional associations through a “Society of Societies” would be of benefit to these organizations, their members and the citizens they serve. This is a loose arrangement with no formal (e.g. legal or financial) implications, hence the “concordat” approach.