Smarter Government, Digital inclusion, and £30m for UK online centres to support Digital Britain’s National Plan for Digital Participation
Photo credit: Machine Envy, Flickr (CC)
Guest post by Helen Milner, Managing Director, UK online centres
On 7 December, digital inclusion received the best possible present I could possibly have wished for it.
The Putting the Frontline First: Smarter Government report recognised the potential to reduce the cost of public services and improve the customer experience by moving the majority of provision online. It also acknowledged 100% online government had to mean 100% online citizens, and Gordon Brown announced £30m for UK online centres to get one million people online for the end of 2012.
It is thanks to the efforts of Champion for Digital Inclusion Martha Lane Fox that the issue gained both prominence and then financial backing from government, and the £30m will form one pillar of her wider Race Online 2012 initiative. She and I are both very clear that it is money for digital inclusion itself, via UK online centres. The vast majority of it will go directly to grassroots practitioners helping real people in real places make the most of technology.
It is, after all, at grassroots level where digital inclusion happens, and where it is made to reach the most deeply excluded – and it is at grassroots level where the credit crunch has bitten the hardest. £30m is a great boost to the sector, and will allow us to extend grassroots provision through a number of grant funding models, targeting areas and audiences to maximum effect.
To administer the process we’ll be taking on more central staff, and growing the UK online centres member network in areas of high deprivation or low provision. If you or your networks offer support and access to computers and the internet, we want to hear from you.
Alongside grant funding, we’ll also be investing in the marketing of digital inclusion – raising awareness of the benefits the internet can bring, the opportunities to get to grips with it, and the chance for everyone from individuals to corporations to Pass IT on. Again, there will be a clear focus at making this work from the bottom up, giving centres the materials, tools and support to run their own campaigns and drive their own new footfall.
Make no mistake, £30m for 1m online is a fantastic opportunity, but it is still also a challenge, and it will take the joint efforts of public, private and third sector partners in digital inclusion to distribute it, use it, and make it happen.
In the run up to Christmas I’ve been working with BIS colleagues on plans and practicalities, and when the New Year hits, I’ll be looking forward to working with more partners to make the money work its hardest. Please do get in touch at ukonlinecentres@ufi.com if you think you can play a part.
I’ll look forward to hearing from you.
not much point in putting all this effort into digital inclusion when the current broadband infrastructure in the UK is so bad. Better saving the money until everyone has access to a decent connection. There is no point in hyping up something that doesn’t work. Half the country is throttled, capped, or simply still on dial up. The contention ratios in the exchanges mean bottlenecks everywhere, and that is why they are trying to stop fileshare, in order to prop up the obsolete copper a while longer. We need investment in fibre, fat pipes and big data centres, so that the UK can lead the way in the digital revolution. If we stay on the copper much longer we will be left behind, and countries who get IT will reap the ROI on NGA.
(Return on Investment in Next Gen Access)
Cmon, get out of the box and light the fibre… Lack of awareness by policy makers may mean BT openretch is subsidised by govt to implement the BET scam. This means to provide the 2meg USC two copper lines are bonded to deliver a service. Householders will have to pay two phone charges and broadband too. This will mean more digital exclusion not less! The sooner government stop listening to the spin and realise how obsolete our infrastructure is the sooner something can be done. Then there is a point to funding UK online centres. Until then it is a waste, because people can’t get a connection at home that works well. If Korea et al can provide 1000 meg for a tenner a month it proves it is possible. £60 a month for a hugely contended 2 meg feed is not the solution for digitalbritain.
If a job is worth doing its worth doing right. Or leave it alone. Could someone tell Gordon this? and ask him to stop telling the world that the Uk has ’superfast’ broadband… cos it doesn’t.
And the faster fibre broadband that BT is rolling out is only replicating the virgin cable footprint. Far better to reach out to new areas instead of doing a small portion of the country twice. Rural areas need fibre too. 90% of the UK land mass is out of range of a decent connection from exchanges. Yet the two largest telcos keep replicating work done in 10% area which is urban. tis a disgrace that ofcom allows it.
chris
chris
Happy New Year Helen and it is fantatsic news for all all “real people in real places making the most of Digital technology” and I think all of us at Northern College come under that classification
We look forward to playing our part in reaching those at risk of exclusion and are convinced of the role of technology in our mission
Digital inclusion is good, and long overdue. However – i think many of the online resources are missing a fundamental point. Dialogue. The technology as presently used by government and administrration is essentially (i) as a means of automating manual information collection and (ii) disseminating information – or if i was being less charitable – telling the proles how it is!! – not asking them how it should be. one way traffic.
This blog is a good example of allowing somet return, but what i would actually like to see is online chat as part of digital inclusion for example with staff in government. The solution used by – by most online services.
Thanks to your tweet I was able to pick up information about how to bid for funding – which I have passed on to officers in my council.
Digital exclusion is a major issue in many deprived areas in the South – it must be tackled to improve access to essential public services as well as to improve quality of life.
Please continue to communicate using Twitter – v.useful for busy councillors with limited time!
If we can create a demand for broadband through giving people the skills that they need to get online for the first time then this will then create the demand from the public for better broadband access for their area. If you can live without something and are unaware of it, you don’t demand it. Therefore, getting more people online should hopefully then lead to better broadband.
disagree with previous comment. There is no point in providing incentive for people to get on to computers when there is no decent internet access available for miles. You can’t show them any benefit, you can only describe it. Then they have to wait for years to get what they want. There is already great demand for access in rural areas, so why not let them have it. They can then inspire the folk in urban areas to get online, get educated, save money, innovate and socialise. I still think you need the pipes before you try to demonstrate the benefits. Many in rural areas already know the benefits, but still they can’t make anyone listen.