Digital inclusion in the UK
Digital inclusion remains a major challenge in the UK as highlighted in the Digital Exclusion Report published today
Digital inclusion has never been more critical. As we face continued challenges left by the pandemic and new ones created by economic uncertainty, bridging the digital divide is fundamental to creating a more equitable and inclusive society. In doing so, we promote equal opportunities, foster economic growth, enable education, enhance civic participation, drive innovation, and build resilient communities.
We have been fortunate to collaborate with the Mozilla Foundation, focused on creating a healthy internet environment, to develop a comprehensive 5-year strategy and programme plans to drive "Trustworthy AI" worldwide. In addition, we partnered with the Prince's Trust to facilitate the co-creation and design of a web app which connected young people to digital job opportunities and supported them throughout the employment process.
However, the progress in digital inclusion has its challenges. The Communications and Digital Committee released a Digital Exclusion Report today that found that despite The Government's ambition to make the UK a technology superpower and centre for AI regulation internationally, that a high level of digital exclusion still remained, with multi-billion pound impacts on economic growth, public health and levelling up. Overall, digital skills shortages cost the economy up to £63bn a year.
Key areas of concern are:
4m people can still not complete a single basic digital task to get online.
5m workers will be acutely under-skilled in basic digital skills by 2030.
7m households have no broadband or mobile internet access.
£63bn is lost each year to the UK economy due to overall digital skills shortages.
1m people have cut back or cancelled their internet packages in the last year due to affordability issues.
Their recommendations:
Urgent action to help with the cost of living crisis: This should include scrapping VAT on social internet tariffs to reduce costs and working with the private sector to scale up internet voucher schemes.
Investment in basic skills: the most basic digital skills are now as important as maths and literacy. They should feature more prominently in schools, apprenticeships and adult learning courses.
Boosting digital inclusion hubs: There is inadequate support for community-based digital inclusion hubs.
Future-proofing public services: The Government must review the increasing use of predictive machine-learning tools in public services to ensure the digitally excluded do not face further marginalisation.
Additional efforts are underway to bridge these gaps, with public and private stakeholders working together to promote digital inclusion through initiatives focused on connectivity, digital skills training and inclusive digital policies.
Partnership and collaboration are the essentials for digital inclusion strategies, and knowing what current partners are doing, ensuring that specific needs are understood and met and finding a collaborative way to resource provision to close any gaps are all parts of a successful digital inclusion strategy.