News and Insights

Is the Digital Strategy 2022 Taking Digital Inclusion Seriously Enough?

25/08/2022

Mikael Leidenhag

With the UK’s Digital Strategy 2022, the government pledges to harness digital innovation to build an  inclusive and competitive economy.[1] This 92-page document outlines the visions and key decisions in order to create a thriving digital economy by focusing on six priority areas.

Digital Infrastructure and Light-Touch Regulations

In order to strengthen the UK’s position as a leader in technology, the government emphasises the need for establishing a robust digital infrastructure, such that everyone and every part of the UK can have access to secure connectivity and services. This ambition includes achieving “at least 85% gigabit coverage by 2025 and at least 99% gigabit coverage by 2030”.[2] As part of laying strong foundations, the government prioritises unlocking the power of data, as well as nurturing a digital ecosystem, characterised by a light-touch regulatory framework.

Ideas and Innovation                 

A focus of this strategy is to stimulate innovation and the generation of ideas. The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will play a prominent role “by accelerating innovation by driving investment in R&D business and academia”, and creating cross-sector partnerships. In continuation with previous policy initiatives, this strategy stresses innovation in the NHS in order to improve cost-effectiveness and quality of care.

Education and Skills Training

The 2022 strategy acknowledges the current digital skills gap in the workforce and  vows to improve the availability of lifelong digital skills training. This includes improving digital education in schools and raising the profile of STEM subjects, facilitated by significant investment by the Department for Education, and awareness raising ambitions regarding digital occupations. However, the strategy further mentions the importance of digitally upskilling the “hidden middle”, namely the 11.8 million adults in the “UK who are online, but lack the essential digital skills for work”.[3]

Financial Investment

In seeking to nurture a healthy digital ecosystem, the government aims to encourage investment in “early-stage business” in order to maintain the flow of innovation, but also “scaling up” venture capital investment which comes mainly from non-UK sources. The responsibility of the government, according to the strategy, is “to remove obstacles and costs making long-term” investment in the UK’s digital sector feasible.

Levelling up

On February 2, the UK Government released its “Levelling Up” white paper, which articulated the mission to provide “everyone the opportunity to flourish”.[4] The Digital Strategy shares this vision, and maintains the importance of enabling “everyone, from every industry and across the UK, to benefit from all that digital innovation can offer”. As a first measure, the government will support access to public procurement opportunities; for example, by enhancing the flexibility of the NHS’s approach of procuring technological solutions. A second measure involves investing in regional communities, thus combating the rural-urban digital divide. The South East, Yorkshire, Humber, and Northern Ireland are mentioned as high priorities, where “over 10% of the population are ‘internet non-users’”.[5] Here, the strategy mentions the Local Digital Skills Partnerships programme as a successful case study (which we will focus on in a forthcoming research brief).

Global Issues

The strategy concludes with a reflection on the geo-political ramifications of digital technologies, the possibilities of international partnerships, the ambition to establish the UK as a “Science and Tech Superpower”, and the urgency of creating an international data governance so as to ensure the free flow of international data. Any unjust data localisation needs to be opposed.

Reflection: A Sufficient Strategy for Achieving Digital Inclusion?

The UK’s new Digital Strategy proposes both interesting macro and micro interventions for creating a flourishing digital ecosystem. From an inclusion perspective, we should applaud the strategy’s ambition of strengthening a digital education pipeline, especially the focus on enhancing digital skills development in the adult population. At the same time, we are aware that Future Digital Inclusion, Britain’s larges digital skills development programme focused on upskilling the most vulnerable members of society, recently ended when the Department for Education discontinued the funding. Hence, while we are encouraged by the government acknowledging in this digital strategy the importance of lifelong learning, it is nevertheless concerning that the UK’s largest digital skills programme did not receive sufficient governmental funding.

Moreover, we know that the digital divide and the effects of digital exclusion exhibit a disproportionate impact on women, members of BAME communities, and the disabled. Indeed, the 2017 version of the Digital Strategy focused partly on “Enabling a more diverse digital workforce”, and proposed several digital skills initiatives in order to help women move into tech-jobs, as well “targeted support for other underrepresented groups, such as people with disabilities and those from minority backgrounds or lower socio-economic areas". In the latest rendition of the digital strategy, however, this focus is almost entirely absent with the exception of scholarships for people from underrepresented groups towards a new AI and data science conversion course. These scholarships and programmes, while important in and of themselves, are not adequate measures for combating the effects of digital exclusion for vulnerable groups. To quote the conclusion by StateUP, “While these programmes are popular and the scholarships have succeeded in attracting diverse talent, the amount of support pledged in the strategy does not match the scale of the problem.”[6]

Although the government is taking important steps towards upskilling the workforce and making sure that everyone can access the digital economy, the strong focus on job creation and boosting digital innovation in the business sector may lose sight of other important issues. As the Good Things Foundation remarked in a comment on the UK Digital Strategy, “For many adults in the UK, digital inclusion is not just about skills and jobs – it’s about being part of a society and economy that is leaving them behind.” Digital skills are important for accessing housing and financial services, community information, and enabling social connections. Indeed, research indicates that improving digital skills in vulnerable groups and communities can aid in enhancing social inclusion and reduce loneliness in the long-term.[7]

The new Digital Strategy sets forth an ambitious vision for the UK digital economy. However,  we need to ensure that the ongoing transformation of society does not widen the digital divide and that everyone, regardless of background, is able to participate in this era of digitalisation.

References
[1] DCMS. (2022). “UK’s Digital Strategy”. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uks-digital-strategy.

[2] DCMS. (2022). “UK’s Digital Strategy”.

[3] DCMS. (2022). “UK’s Digital Strategy”.

[4] Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. (2022). Levelling Up the United Kingdom. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/levelling-up-the-united-kingdom.

[5] Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. (2022). Levelling Up the United Kingdom.

[6] StateUp. (2020). “UK Digital Strategy: A Roadmap for Digital Inclusion?” Available at: https://stateup.co/uk-digital-strategy-a-roadmap-for-digital-inclusion/.

[7] Cotton, S., Anderson, W. and McCullough, B. (2013). “Impact of Internet Use on Loneliness and Contact with Others Among Older Adults: Cross-Sectional Analysis.” Journal of Medical Internet Research, 15(2): e39; Good Things Foundation. (2021). https://www.goodthingsfoundation.org/what-we-do/news/how-do-we-tackle-loneliness/; Seifert, A., Cotton, S. and Xie, B. (2020). “A Double Burden of Exclusion? Digital and Social Exclusion of Older Adults in Times of COVID-19.” Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences. Unassigned: 1-5.