August 2011
Civic Agenda Briefing Assisted Digital
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Introduction The Government has set out in the Open Public Services White Paper1 the policy of Assisted Digital, which is intended to help bring digital services to those among the 8.7 million people currently offline2 who are least able or willing to access the internet. Government services must be accessible to all who need them, and the aim of Assisted Digital is to ensure that services increasingly delivered Digital by Default are accessible to every member of the public while maximising the economic benefit to citizens and government of solely digital service provision. Prime Minister David Cameron has emphasised the importance of digital access: “In the internet age, we need to ensure that people aren't being left behind as more and more services and business move online. But this issue isn't just about fairness as Martha [Lane Fox]'s work shows, promoting digital inclusion is essential for a dynamic modern economy and can help to make government more efficient and effective.” Issues of digital access As services move online, the consequences of not ensuring inclusion include compounding existing issues of social isolation and economic disadvantage. The Communities and Local Government report Digital Inclusion: An Analysis of Social Disadvantage and the Information Society concludes that “those who are most deprived socially”, such as the unemployed and those with low of income and education, are “least likely to have access to digital resources such as online services”3, and are therefore “least likely to benefit from the very applications of technology that could help them tackle their disadvantage”. Rural access was also found to be more digitally excluded, and there is also an element of ‘digital choice’: the decision to use or not use digital services based on cultural or social factors. Therefore, Assisted Digital initiatives are designed to encourage change while making that change as easy as possible to make, so that financial, educational, and perceived cultural obstacles are not barriers to inclusion. Delivering Assisted Digital To tackle these access issues, the government is looking primarily to private initiatives and volunteers to deliver its policy of Assisted Digital. Research has shown that families with children are more likely to be digitally connected than those without4, and so the Government is encouraging particularly young, tech-‐savvy volunteers to inspire and pass on digital skills to offline family members and others in their communities. An example of this is the independently run initiative Race Online 2012, which encourages volunteers to be ‘Digital Champions’5, inspiring and passing on digital skills to those currently offline. 1
Open Public Services White Paper, July 2011, p. 53. http://www.openpublicservices.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ As of 20/07/11, http://raceonline2012.org/ 3 Digital Inclusion: An Analysis of Social Disadvantage and the Information Society, October 2008, pp. 9-‐12. 4 Digital Inclusion: An Analysis of Social Disadvantage and the Information Society, October 2008. 5 http://champions.go-‐on.co.uk/ 2