The House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee has released a new Digital Exclusion review, blatantly calling out the Government’s failings for digital inclusion across the UK.

Among some of the report’s major findings is that the UK government needs to update their digital exclusion initiatives to reflect current technological advancements and directly address modern issues exacerbated by the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis.

According to the report, the cost of living crisis has “made a bad situation worse for people who struggle to afford internet access.”

The increasing move of services to digital platforms is at risk of leaving people across the nation behind as they struggle to access the digital world due to a lack of skills, broadband infrastructure, or access to devices.

The Good Things Foundation Data Poverty Lab had identified 81 broad areas where the internet “has become integral to daily lives,” according to the report, and the government has ambitions to intensify their digital transformation in at least 75 public services.

Public services can therefore be inaccessible to those that are not able to access the internet or perform even the most basic digital tasks, such as connect to wifi or open a webpage.

This has permeated into the workforce: the Industrial Strategy Council reported that around 5 million workers will be “acutely under-skilled” digitally by 2030.

The report claims that investing in digital skills makes economic sense: for ever £1 invested in basic digital skills, there will a return of £9.48 by 2032, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

“The economic case for tackling digital exclusion is clear: it would improve productivity, support economic growth and alleviate pressure on some public services,” the report read.

“Yet the Government does not appear to have conducted a single assessment of the economic impacts of digital exclusion in recent years.”

Further, improving digital inclusion aligns with many public and government interests: programmes are in line with Levelling up initiatives, and could aid net-zero goals.

The House of Lords committee is recommending that the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) should therefore public an assessment of the probable impact of digital exclusion over the next ten years, and value for money assessments for their proposed interventions to lessen the digital divide.

Recommendations

The report made several key recommendations for the government across different aspects it found increased digital exclusion, from broadband initiatives to skills and accessibility, to predictive AI’s impact.

Pragmatism is central to the report’s approach: Liam Halligan, as quoted in the report, said that effective solutions are:

“Just not sexy. Ministers like talking about unicorns and AI. They like being photographed with the tech bros in T-shirts and sand shoes, rather than dealing with what is a necessity of life now.”

First, the report required the government to refresh their digital inclusion strategy within six months of responding to this report.

Currently, the committee has “no confidence” that DSIT is making a digital exclusion a priority.

The committee recommends that DSIT should therefore establish a cross-government digital exclusion unit, working with external stakeholders and across government departments to “embed digital exclusion in priority policy areas.”

Internet Access

Another major priority the House of Lords committe found the government was falling short in is affordable itnernet access and broadband rollout.

While the committee supports the continued rollout of Project Gigabit to bring broadband infrastructure to rural and remote areas, they recommend Ofcom reviews the definition of what qualifies as a “decent broadband service” under teh Universal Service Obligation.

Currently, the obligation does not guarantee that those in more remote areas can access broadband that would allow for videoconferencing, making it more difficult for them to access more work opportunities.

In addition to infrastructure, the committee recommends the government makes a more concernted effort to make broadband accessible through reviewing internet voucher schemes and removing VAT from social tariffs and from wholesale broadband.

Skills

To improve digital skills, the committee has recommended that the Department for Education plays a central role in setting basic digital skills targets at varying education stages, including for school leavers.

Focusing on ensuring students leave school with the most basic digital skills rather than offering coding classes needs to be a renewed commitment.

Recommended

• How MadeBrave is Fostering Creativity in a Post-Pandemic Workforce
• Scots Spacetech Spire Providing Satellites for Wildfire Monitoring
• Diverse AI Inspires at its Scottish Launch Event

However, schooling cannot be the only route to improve digital skills – the committee has reflected that  local, community-level interventions have been more successful than formal qualifications and government-wide initiatives.

Accessibility

Though digitisation can often improve accessibility to certain services, it can enhance inequalities for those who face more digital exclusion due to a lack of resources, skills, or due to disabilities.

The government’s digital inclusion strategy should therefore include support for in-person and place-based initiatives to help those who have issues accessing online services.

Further, the committee has challenged the government to audit their own websites for accessibility standards and regulations, and have public services adopt accessibility standards for their websites.

Refocusing on AI

The use of predictive AI was also touched on in the report – the committee proposed the government should review the extent of predictive analytics in public-facing services.

Predictive AI systems and other algorithms rely on data, and digitally-excluded people are often left out of these data sets as they are less likely to interact with the online services collecting this data. Therefore, they risk further digital exclusion if this is not taken into account, especially if this is used for informing public services.