No connection: Britain’s dangerous digital divide

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Password Radio Show, written, presented, and produced by the internet and technology think tank and news website Future Intelligence for Resonance FM. Technology and computers are now center stage in our lives, driving every single thing we do from work to leisure. And on our Future Intelligence website, www.futureintelligence.co.uk, we dissect the impact this has on us. And today we look at just what it means not to be connected. It’s a condition that has now spawned its own term, digital exclusion, a condition that according to some of those we interviewed affects nearly a fifth of the UK and has prompted a damning report from the House of Lords exposing the government’s woeful record in the area. Like it or not, it’s a sad fact that in these days of a cost of living crisis and food banks, that computers and access to the internet are now considered an essential utility. That’s because The internet is now crucial to our everyday existence, as the House of Lords report roasting the government pointed out in the first paragraph of its summary: The government aspires to global digital leadership, but it does not have a credible strategy to tackle digital exclusion. This matters. Everything from housing and healthcare resources to banking and benefits systems is shifting online at an unprecedented rate. By failing to take decisive action, the government is allowing millions of citizens to fall behind, says the report’s authors, pointing out that the last time the government commented on the issue was nearly 10 years ago when it published a digital inclusion strategy in 2014. In its next two paragraphs, The report summary goes on to paint a bleak picture: The figures are concerning. Fully 1.7 million households have no mobile or broadband internet at home. Up to a million people have cut back or cancelled internet packages in the past year as cost of living challenges bite. Around 2.4 million people are unable to complete a single basic task to get online, such as opening an internet browser. Over 5 million employed adults cannot complete essential digital work tasks. Basic digital skills are set to become the UK’s largest skills gap by 2030. This all has profound consequences for individual wellbeing and multi-billion-pound implications for UK productivity. Productivity, economic growth, public health, levelling up, education, and net zero objectives. As a result, many in the UK have fallen into a data poverty that reflects and worse amplifies the poverty in their lives. Being data poor means that you are very unlikely to find your way out of real poverty because it affects your chances of getting meaningful employment. Because of this, Future Intelligence is launching its Mind the Gap campaign, which is aiming to make both broadband and technological access a physical right for UK citizens. So what is digital exclusion? And in this day and age, why does it matter? We asked Liverpool University’s Professor Simeon Yates, a pioneer in the study of the field and one of the world’s leading experts.

Speaker B: Well, there’s a challenge. So the kind of problem with defining digital exclusion is people want a nice hard measure, so you don’t have a broadband connection or you don’t have a laptop. But when you actually think about it, there’s not having a laptop, not having broadband, not having a smartphone, not having the skills, only having a slow broadband connection, having a small amount of data on your smartphone. You know, which one do you choose? So in the work I do, until quite recently, we’ve kind of looked at what people do online, and the people who do nothing online are clearly obviously digitally disconnected. But there are an awful lot of the UK population that do very little online. They might do the odd email, the odd bit of online shopping, sometimes helped by friend or family, or maybe a group of younger people who only do social media. Listen to digital radio type stuff, watch the odd YouTube clip, etc. And some of our research don’t even really engage with things like mainstream news. They’re getting their news through WhatsApp and other things. We call those limited users, so they’re partly excluded. Like poverty, it’s a relative measure. Most recently, we’ve been developing a measure of digital exclusion by actually talking to households and saying, what is the minimum, absolutely minimum acceptable level of digital kit, skills, and support that a household needs to be able to have a basic reasonable life in a modern digital society? So asking that question of households themselves. Now they, they’ve come up with a definition And then we’ve also asked multiple households then to say what makes the list of stuff that goes into that. And that’s been published, so if you go to our Minimum Digital Living Standards website, you can see that definition published. The first stage of that is a verbal definition, and that verbal definition that they came up with as households I think is really good, which is a minimum digital standard of living includes, but is more than, having accessible internet, adequate equipment, and the skills, knowledge, and support people need It’s about being able to communicate, connect, and engage with opportunities safely and with confidence. So what we’ve done is basically got households to think about and then agree what’s the minimum set of kit, what’s the minimum set of skills, what’s the minimum set of awareness of being in a digital society. You know that you leave information about yourself behind when you go online, the risks of being online, how to behave online, etc. What we’d argue is that the moment you go below that list, then you start to suffer some consequence of being digitally excluded. Your children may not have adequate access to kit for their education. You may not be as safe online. You may not be able to access services like the NHS and so on because they have been pushed online or moved online. So that’s what we’ve been doing. That’s what we’re working on. We’ve just published, we’re going to survey what proportion of the UK population is above and below that definition over the next 6 months. So rather than say you’re digitally excluded because you don’t have a laptop, actually you’re digitally excluded if you can’t live a basic life you value in a digital society because you’re missing either the equipment or the skills. And that’s what I would say, and that’s a much bigger group of the UK population than the ONS figures that 90-odd percent, you know, 95% plus of the British population has done something with the internet in the last 6 months. Doing something with the internet does not make you included. But we are talking more like 20% of households are either fully digitally excluded or, in this relative measure, suffering some aspects of digital exclusion.

Speaker C: Okay, well, there they are, more dire statistics than the ones that we’ve heard so far. So is this simply a symptom of people beginning to become aware of the internet, aware of their engagement with it, or a symptom of the role that the internet and technology is now playing in their lives? Or is this a political crisis as it’s been presented?

Speaker B: Well, if you’re referring to the House of Lords report, I think the issue has been, and I’m going to use a phrase I’ve used over much in this, the problem with digital exclusion or, you know, digital inclusion issues is it’s everybody’s problem but nobody owns it. If you talk about transport issues, it’s owned by the Department of Transport and there’s a route to policy. So it crosscuts things. I do think there’s a bit of a crisis, but I think the bit of a crisis is this, in that we tend to assume that once you’ve got people online, everything flows. They become digitally literate, they do digitally capable, they do all these wonderful things that you might think the world is like if you looked in the media or you buy into the kind of Californian dream of how the internet and the digital world should be. But there are lots of groups, and it’s not just older people it’s younger people as well who are in less educated, less well-off backgrounds are not as digitally aware, digitally capable, got as much access, able to do as much online as others. And it’s something that was brought up for the House of Lords report.

Speaker A: And Professor Yates goes on to point out that digital exclusion is actually more pernicious than poverty. Because in the digital age, not being digital has a direct impact on your life culturally, economically, and in terms of your expectations. It literally diminishes you.

Speaker B: Kat Dixon, who’s been one of the digital poverty research fellows for the Good Things Foundation, she’s done a really nice report. And she’s got a nice graphic which she calls the kind of digital elements. Or the periodic table of internet elements, I think what she calls it. And across the top are little boxes with things in it like healthcare, entertainment, transport, whatever. And below it are boxes that she’s found organizations supporting people to do because they didn’t have digital. So these are all things that you need to do digitally. So you can just look at people who are, say, say below our minimum digital living standard and look at which of those boxes you could cross out. If you’ve not got a laptop or a smartphone and your doctor goes to online appointments, getting an appointment becomes harder. If you’ve not got those, you can’t do online shopping and get cheaper food, and so on and so on. And you start crossing boxes off. That’s what digital exclusion means, is that some of the everyday things become harder. For many people.

Speaker C: So what you’re sort of saying then is that it may be an expression of poverty, but it’s an expression of poverty in a very different way. This is a very 21st century expression of poverty because it means that you can’t participate fully in this 21st century world, which is a gateway to actually becoming potentially wealthier.

Speaker B: Yes, definitely. And also we worry that it’s an amplifier in a sense that maybe in the 1800s a lack of literacy would be an amplifier to the, to aspects of poverty. A lack of digital access and digital skills is an amplifier. Suddenly the poverty premium, the fact that things are often more expensive for poor people, your car insurance is more expensive or your mobile phone’s more expensive because you don’t have the credit record, or your shopping’s more expensive because you can’t travel to the big supermarket. Well, lack of digital often amplifies that further because then you can’t do the online shopping, or you have to do the paper-based version of applying for things, which then gets you charged more or takes longer or whatever. So there is a worry that digital exclusion is like an amplifier for some of the effects of poverty as well.

Speaker A: Professor Simeon Yates of Liverpool University. So, is there a crisis at the heart of government? The House of Lords report seems to think so and points that out forcibly. The root causes of digital exclusion reflect long-standing social, economic and regional disparities which are not easily solved. But the current scale of the challenge is a direct consequence of political lethargy. The government has major ambitions to make the UK a science and technology superpower, boost economic productivity and digitise public services. It must pay more attention to the basics which underpin the long-term viability of such aims. Just in case its point has been missed, it adds: The government’s contention that digital exclusion is a priority is not credible. Its flagship digital inclusion strategy is almost a decade old. Formal cross-government evaluation seems to have stopped. Working groups have been disbanded. Interventions to help with internet access are too timid. Government cannot be expected to solve everything, but it can achieve much by showing interest in driving change against clearly defined objectives. We have no confidence that this is happening. Senior political leadership to drive joined-up concerted action is sorely needed. It’s a point taken up by the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement-Jones, who has been a vocal supporter of increased digital inclusion.

Speaker D: Well, they’re huge and they are damning, and quite rightly so, particularly in terms of the government strategy, which was last looked at in 2014. And as you know, a huge amount has happened in the last 7 years. So, you know, it’s not surprising that they’ve, they’re saying what they’re saying. I mean, there is 1.7 million people without internet access, and they calculate, and in fact I think it’s Lloyds Bank who’ve done the figures, is that there are still going to be 5 million people without the appropriate digital skills in 2030. When the time comes, there’s a very useful chart at the very beginning of the report that talks about the percentage increase of monthly data use since 2014, 731% up, and yet the government hasn’t got a new refreshed strategy in place. So that applies both to the overall aspect of data poverty and to the aspect of skills, digital skills, which the Committee also talks about.

Speaker C: There’s two things, isn’t there, as you pointed out. One, there are people being online and being able to afford to be online. Two, there is this second and very important issue about being able to use a computer. The charity Future.Now is coming out with a report on this on Wednesday. So how are we going to solve that?

Speaker D: Well, I’m a huge fan of Future.Now, and I think that’s the third leg of this particular stool. You’ve got the whole question of data poverty, i.e., not— can’t afford access to broadband or doesn’t— don’t have access to broadband, and that’s, if you like, the data poverty aspect. Then you’ve got the no access to devices. That’s where Future.Now come in. And then you’ve got the whole question of digital skills, and you’ve got the Good Things Foundation dealing with a couple of those as well, where they’ve got a data bank, local data banks, where people are helped with their expenditure on getting access to broadband. You’ve also got the social tariffs, but only 5% of people actually have taken up those social tariffs. So this is one of the major recommendations in the report. And then finally, in terms of digital skills, there’s a real issue there because although the government in theory have programs that deal with digital skills, in practice they haven’t really followed through and there’s no joined-up activity between the different government departments. It’s this thing called the Essential Digital Skills Framework, which is meant to provide provide a basis for driving improvements in digital skills. But given we’ve got a figure that they estimate there are going to be still 5 million people without those skills, and especially when you consider how much things like AI are moving forward, this is going to be a real problem.

Speaker C: Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? There is a need for some sort of overarching policy in all of this from the government. There’s a need for a lead from the government. We’ve interviewed quite a few of the small broadband companies. Some of them formed a group called the Rebel Alliance. They told me that they’d approached local councils, they’d approached government, they’d approached lots of people to try to solve this. They say that the broadband is actually in the geographical area of some of the most deprived areas. They got no response. They got no response at all.

Speaker D: The Select Committee, if anything, is even more damning. They say the government has taken its eye off the ball. The principles set out in the strategy talking about the 2014 strategy, may endure, but the contention that digital exclusion is a government priority is not credible. Now, for a Select Committee, that’s quite strong language. And then they say, we have no confidence that the new, in brackets, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is making digital exclusion a priority in cross-Whitehall policymaking. They do not appear to be adequate informal structures for coordinating policy, updating targets, or reviewing progress at either an official level or ministerial level. So, you know, what they’re suggesting is a sort of cross-government digital exclusion unit, and I think that would be really good. I’d also— my personal preference would be to have a cabinet committee that would oversee that, because without that kind of ministerial clout, it’s quite difficult to get stuff moving. And they recommend that the Prime Minister’s Office takes a direct interest in this too, which I suppose that’s another way of making sure that it’s got the prominence that it deserves.

Speaker C: Let’s underline how important this is. We are, in terms of digital skills, we are very low down in the international tables. We aren’t even in the top 5. That is, is just shocking. A country that actually, who’s, you know, one of our academics came up with the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, and we have to say that we’ve taken our eye off the ball is a serious mis-understatement.

Speaker D: Absolutely, and this applies at all levels of skills. I mean, we’re talking, when we’re talking about digital skills in this context, in the context of digital exclusion, you know, we’re talking about pretty basic skills. There’s a a rather useful description of the different levels of skills needed, which are part of the Essential Digital Skills Framework. There’s a foundation level, and then the Essential Digital Skills for Life, and then the Essential Digital Skills for Work, which takes you through a sort of grading of all of this. Now without all of those, how are people going to work in our digital economy? The digitization of our creative world is phenomenal. Now we need those creative skills, but we also, in order to take advantage of those, need people who’ve got the digital skills to, if you like, combine with creative skills. And unless we recognise that the two are absolutely joined together, we’re not going to take advantage. And as you rightly say, we’re already behind all sorts of places like Singapore. In fact, places like Dubai have probably got a better level of digital skills than we have. So we’ve really got to get our skates on, quite frankly.

Speaker C: And this level of impoverishment, you mentioned AI, there’s all of these people experimenting with ChatGPT. There are these people who don’t have the basic digital skills to actually get into a situation where they can start doing that experimentation. That is leaving them not only digitally impoverished, that’s, that’s, they’re not in the 21st century, they’re in the 20th century.

Speaker D: That’s absolutely right, and the irony of all of this is that in the bill, in the online safety bill, we talk about media literacy, but unless you’ve got digital literacy to be able to connect safely in the first place, you can’t then even begin to have media literacy, which tackles things like, do I understand the messages that I’m getting may be misinformation or disinformation? You know, it’s that more granular understanding of how the internet works, but basic digital literacy is fundamental in all of this.

Speaker C: Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Clement-Jones.

Speaker A: So to be in the 21st century, the UK needs digital skills, and without those, we will all be poorer, which means that we should all be online. But unfortunately, as many people have been pointing out, a lot of the country is not online. Just to underline how important that is, Some 90% of all job adverts are now online. If you want to find a good job, you must have internet access, and many of the most underprivileged in our society are not. It was an issue that many of the aspiring internet broadband entrepreneurs picked up on, according to Dan Eilat, the co-founder of Gigabit, a Midlands-based company that saw providing internet access as a public duty. They wanted to provide a social tariff, a broadband fee that made the internet available to all at low cost.

Speaker E: We set up an internet service provider in the Midlands. I’m from the Midlands and the, the great hope was that as well as building a kind of next generation internet company that would deliver all the fast speeds and all that good stuff, is that we could do something about the digital divide. It’s bad all the way up and down the country, but in the Midlands, it’s got its fair share of being problematic. There are a lot of areas of poverty in the Midlands. It has more than its fair share, let’s say that. We were very enthusiastic about trying to build a social tariff. And a social tariff is, it’s a plan that people on low incomes can afford. And we thought, okay, this is really something we need to go and try and do. And there’s sort of 4 parts that make up that, that need to be true for that to happen. The cabling companies have laid the cable. So an internet service provider isn’t necessarily the company that lays the cable. They’re the company that sells you the connection and looks after you as a customer. And if there’s a problem, they’ll kind of make sure it’s okay. So there’s the ISP, i.e., the people you talk to. There’s the infrastructure. Infrastructure stroke network company. Then there’s the social housing company if they’re in social housing. And let’s assume that a lot of people who want the social tariff might live in social housing. And then of course the council sort of needs to be involved in that as well. Now when you consider that a lot of the cable that’s been laid, the first instance of that and the first round of that cabling went to the social housing areas. It’s a huge opportunity to transform the country’s digital footprint and to give people not just internet, but really fast, like world-class internet. So of course, this was exciting for us. Now, I think we were naive in thinking we could achieve that. But as a startup, you kind of have these ideas that you can do that. And I think where we, where we were really disappointed was that we didn’t find that ambition was really shared. By the social housing organizations and the councils and the infrastructure companies, because you can’t expect a startup company or startup companies over— there’s a lot of these new ISPs that have sprung up with the fiber opportunity, but they’re tiny. I mean, we’re a small company. We’re not like the big companies that have been around for 20, 30, 40 years, you know, like the big telcos, right? They and, and the infrastructure companies that that lay the cables, they have to actually play their part in providing a pricing structure because ultimately they provide the ultimate product, which is the cabling and the piping and so on, and even the traffic. But you also need the other guys to play their part as well because a startup can’t be expected to go out and provide support for 30 languages, which is what vulnerable customers and social housing, you know, and let’s not put them in the same bracket, but Some customers in social housing are vulnerable, so you’ve got to take care of them. And ultimately, you need the councils, you need the social housing and the infrastructure companies to kind of work together on that. And I think where we were disappointed was that no one really had— people were keen to try and help, right, let’s be fair, but no one really had deep enough pockets to do anything. So the infrastructure companies didn’t want to bring their prices down, the social housing companies didn’t have any money, nor had any ambition to become a utility company/ISP, and the councils didn’t really know what to do about that. So what’s really missing from all of this— and you can’t put the blame on any one of those, they’re all in the same boat of not really knowing what to do— it’s the top-down government initiative and incentives to actually do something about that, and the direction and the coordination that’s missing.

Speaker C: So what you’re saying is there’s a need for some sort of government aid, almost there’s a need for for a government policy, that the government needs to think this through and say, okay, if we want everybody to be on the internet, we’re going to have to come up with a way to achieve that.

Speaker E: I think you, you not only need a— you need a policy, you need a task force to go and sort this out, because it’s in such— there is such a challenge in making this work because there is such a lack of coordination. A policy on its own If you leave a policy out there and, you know, expect people to go and work with it, it may or may not happen. What you really need is people who can oversee the coordination of those agencies.

Speaker C: There’s a couple of other issues here, aren’t there? Because those people who are digitally excluded, there can be two reasons. One, they could be very poor and they couldn’t afford it. That’s one of the things that we heard about in the House of Lords report. Another one is geographical reasons, where it’s just— it doesn’t actually make any economic sense to connect up places that are in far-flung areas.

Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, that one, that’s another case, and that’s difficult, you know. But I mean, when you’ve got the cabling outside densely populated social housing areas and they can’t be lit up, and they— because people aren’t working together, that is a great shame. Because, you know, you have in cities, specifically cities, you have the chance to change lives and generations on the back of that and become the economic— I mean, there’s reports out about the economic benefits of internet and broadband and connectivity and this, that, and the other. But ultimately, bringing people out of poverty, giving people the opportunity to work online in terms of inclusion, bringing people into the more, you know, into an inclusive workspace. Where, you know, if they’ve got poor internet, they can’t work, they can’t earn.

Speaker A: Gigabit and a number of other internet companies dubbed the Rebel Alliance got together to try to push through their idea of the internet for all and were surprised to find very little support from the powers that be, the government and the local councils. As we have heard from the House of Lords, the government in particular were not at the We put a group together, we did a bit of PR, and we pushed it for a bit.

Speaker E: But to be, you know, it’s disappointing. Nobody really went with it. We got picked up in the press a bit, but obviously we’re 5 very small companies in, you know, sort of small in regions, different regions of the country as well. So there’s only so much you can do with something like that. If we were sort of to say that there was a message that that was trying to get across, It’s that the government needs to really look at the different players in this. It’s not just the councils, it’s not just the infrastructure companies, it’s all of them. And it’s also, you know, ultimately there’s a user experience that isn’t being delivered for people on low incomes, that it’s not really rocket science to design and deliver that, but it takes coordination to deliver it at great scale.

Speaker A: Dan Eilat, co-founder of broadband startup Gigabit, calling for a joined-up approach to UK broadband for the good of all. An approach that has to start by looking at the structure of the modern UK telecommunications industry. BT, which inherited most of the UK telecoms networks from the old Post Office when it was privatised, has been replacing the old copper infrastructure with fibre and runs Openreach, which supplies connections to around 10 million premises, while its competitor Virgin Media’s fibre covers around 16 million premises. Both companies have ambitious rollout plans, with BT Openreach aiming to reach 25 million premises by the end of 2026 and Virgin Media aiming to reach 23 million in the same period. That provides the backbone which is used by other broadband providers to offer their competing services on. So no matter who you are with from the very many different broadband providers, you’ll be running on one or other of those networks. If you want to find out more, research it on the internet if you’re on it, which is what I just did using a blend of web search and AI and some digital skills I’ve honed over the years. But now We are coming to the interesting part, which is the baffling number of different products on offer from different companies and what you can get from them. It’s a problem that the comparison website Broadband Genie seeks to make sense of, trying to help you get what you want for the best value for money, and it’s been finding not only that the system is not working properly with a number of recent outages but also that it’s not helping the digitally excluded. Here’s Alex Toft, broadband expert for Broadband Genie.

Speaker F: Broadband is absolutely an essential— it’s not a luxury anymore, it’s an essential utility. We need it for job opportunities, for education, for our well-being, and it’s essential to growing our economy. I think we risk more people slipping into digital poverty unless we lower the boundaries to entry.

Speaker C: So basically you’re saying that it should be cheaper. Some of the people that we’ve interviewed have said that we’ve got the second slowest, i.e., the poorest broadband in Europe, and it’s the most expensive. Is that right?

Speaker F: Our infrastructure is lagging behind some of our other European countries, and we do pay a little bit more. But there are other things to consider. There are barriers to entry such as credit checks to first get onto a broadband contract. And then there’s— we’ve, we’ve been plagued with mid-contract price rises, so we’d like to see those banished. And we’re in a cost of living crisis, and the poorest are being hardest hit. Providers are resisting promoting the social tariffs that are available able to help these customers.

Speaker C: Okay, it’s interesting that you mentioned social tariffs. What are social tariffs and who is offering them?

Speaker F: Yeah, social tariffs are standard broadband contracts, but they’re at a reduced, a reduced price for people on benefits. The majority of providers offer these contracts, but they’re, you know, they’re a bit hidden away, so it’s, it can be difficult for, for customers to find these.

Speaker C: I mean, that’s the sort of issue too, isn’t it? Because social tariffs, I mean, social tariffs, as I understand it, it’s the most basic of broadband that you’re offering people. It’s almost like a sort of a second-class life on broadband. It’s almost a reflection of the life that you’re getting physically.

Speaker F: Yeah, I think you’re right. The majority of providers offer the entry-level speeds, but some providers also have contracts up to 100 Mbps, which is more than enough to sustain a household of, of 2 or more people.

Speaker C: What does that mean? Does that mean that you can watch films? Does it mean that you can’t watch films? You know, the point about all of this is, as you say, it’s not a utility. I’d say it’s almost as important as the road that you walk along. And because of that, it is this basic access. So during the pandemic, for example, some families without access to broadband were being forced to go to cafes and public spaces to try to actually do their homework.

Speaker F: It’s not acceptable that the penetration rates of social tariffs remain really low. It’s increasing, which we like, but currently only 5% of eligible users are on these, on these contracts, which it’s doubled in the last year, but 5% is not enough.

Speaker C: It’s been said that around 12% of the population is in digital exclusion. Is that something you, you think should be changed then?

Speaker F: That’s correct. So we’d like to see a much higher penetration of the people that are eligible for these contracts signed up. It’s currently 5%. I think there’s a lot more providers can be doing. These deals are currently hidden away on their websites. We’d like to see these made more prominent and would like to see providers actively reaching out to customers they believe would, would be eligible for social tariff.

Speaker C: I mean, this whole thing sounds really hit and miss in the way that you’re describing it. It sounds as though it’s just a sort of almost like the worst market stalls going, where, where you just walk along, you can’t really work out what it is that you want, what it is that you’re going to get. Do you think that there’s a need for some overarching policy on all of this? You seem to be implying that it is because you’re saying that broadband is a a human right, therefore people should have access to it.

Speaker F: I think, um, we’re seeing providers kind of dig their heels in this. It’s— we have to acknowledge we’re in a cost of living crisis, and but businesses are also in the same crisis. I think providers are going to struggle to keep these deals alive. You know, they’re probably running these at a loss. Providers have called for to the government to drop the VAT on these from 20% to 5% to help keep these more sustainable.

Speaker C: Okay, so you’re not asking— just asking for a government policy, you’re asking for direct government intervention.

Speaker F: I think we need intervention at some stage. The way we see it, we just need—

Speaker G: we—

Speaker F: there’s only 5% of eligible penetration, this number needs to come up.

Speaker A: Alex Toft of Broadband Genie. And digital exclusion is not just about being able to get online. It’s also about being able to get the most out of being online. Something that Emeritus Professor Sugata Mitra, formerly of Newcastle University and another of the pioneers of research into digital exclusion, points out. Not having digital skills means that you cannot even collaborate with other people in your social groups. A problem that particularly affects the elderly and people in ethnic groups, but cuts across all sectors. But it is among the elderly that is felt most.

Speaker G: They don’t, and I don’t have enough experimental proof of this when I say They don’t. I can only go by the experience that older people use computers and smartphones less for doing things than younger people do. And I’m saying that we can guess that the reason is that they’re unable to teach themselves how to do something new. That’s one. The other thing is, I think, societal. You know, in my experiment, what I noticed and reported to over and over again is that this whole process of self-organized learning happens in groups. You have to have groups of people, groups of children. Our society is not structured such that elderly people work in groups. I mean, they might meet in groups, in clubs or whatever, but they don’t actually take on a task in groups. At least they’re not particularly encouraged to. I once did an experiment in Manchester in a care home, and I actually got the old elderly people to make groups. And I noticed immediately that their self-learning abilities improved dramatically. In fact, they improved more than children’s because, you know, I mean, these are educated people. They also make up for each other’s deficiencies, particularly sentimental little incident in in Manchester was a lady who said to a male gentleman next to her, ‘You do the mouse because my hand shakes too much with the mouse.’ But she said, ‘Don’t try to use your head.’ So that is— so, you know, groups of people can actually learn, but we need to encourage them to do so.

Speaker C: The House of Lords came out with a report last week which you may or may not have seen. I mean, it was, it was pretty damning. It was very caustic about digital exclusion. It made the point that there was a significant percentage of the population who didn’t have access to the internet and didn’t have a smartphone, and that tended to follow these economic lines. It also made the point that you’ve made, which is that So much has gone online now— banking, claiming on the benefit system, doing it, getting in contact with your local council, whatever. There, there are so many services that you have to access.

Speaker G: And if we look at the penetration of smartphones or the usage of smartphones by percentage of population, I noticed that China tops the list, followed by India, followed by the United States,— then a whole list of countries. The United Kingdom comes somewhere towards the bottom. And I was kind of shocked. So why should this be so? Because UK is a developed rich nation. Why should the percentage be lower? Well, I don’t know the real reason, but I think I can guess. And it’s actually not, not as bad as you might think. In the UK, elderly people do not rely on smartphones, do not wish to rely on smartphones, because we have public utilities and public services that still function extremely well. You can go to a post office and buy a stamp and stick it on an envelope and post it there. You can find a doctor, you can do your banking. If I compare with India, Whether you’re poor or you’re rich, if the option was to not go to a bank, you would say, I want that option, whatever it is. Why? Well, because they’re going to make me wait, there’s going to be a queue, there’s going to be, you know, I won’t get a bus in time. So the social infrastructure has driven these poorer economies deeper and deeper into the internet, whereas If you look at the United States, which is near the top of the list as far as internet and smartphone usage goes, we could say, does my logic apply over there? Because after all, it’s also equally easy in the United States to do things manually, should you wish to. But hold on, that’s not true. It may be a 20-mile drive to the nearest post office. Yes, the post office will be very efficient, they’ll be very polite and everything. But then you’ve got to get into your garage, get into your car, get onto the highway, etc., etc. Every car has a smartphone-linked map that keeps you going. If you’re 80 years old, and if you’ve always driven cars which did not have such a device, your first feeling, your first intention is, “Can I shut it off?” because I know the way to the post office. Well, can you shut it off? Not very easily. So these are perhaps some of the reasons why in the US even the older people do tend to pick up the smartphone as an option, but not in the UK.

Speaker C: There’s another issue here too though, isn’t there, which is that I’ve heard a lot of old people— my parents used to particularly say, why do we have to use this new system? Why can’t we go back to the old way of doing things? It was just as easy. And also they were saying that they don’t trust the new system, or they don’t trust the technological system, because there’s a deep awareness of scammers and other people like that, which is one of the things that old people in the UK in particular do tend to focus on when they see news reports.

Speaker G: Oh, absolutely. It, it kind of strengthens, uh, the argument I was making just a minute ago, which is that the UK does have robust systems, which is why the elderly will say, well, things work just as well without the internet as they do with.

Speaker A: Professor Sugata Mitra pointing out that this world of digital impoverishment is now multifaceted. Partly composed of those without money and those without understanding. A problem of digital literacy that is now also hitting the workforce too, with devastating consequences according to Liz Williams, the chief executive of charity and pressure group Future.Now. According to Williams, businesses now have a role to ensure that workers are brought up to speed with the skills they need rather than being recruited on the basis of the skills they have.

Speaker H: Digital inclusion in its broadest sense is about the country having the infrastructure, people having devices, people having data, people having skills, but there’s also a huge piece about personal motivation. And particularly, that’s something that I personally think is important and often is under— underlooked or under-recognised, and the roadmap that we’re launching for Action from Future.Now talks to the importance of strategy, talks to the importance of business helping people build these skills, but it also talks to the need to create a culture change so that people want to build these skills, so people see why it matters to them, and most importantly, feel supported through that process. I think when you’re looking at the workforce, you know, technology is among us, whether you work in construction, whether you work in retail, or whether you work in an office. And there is a prevailing narrative that suggests if you give people a device, whether that’s a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone, they’ll just pick it up. But the data doesn’t show that. The data shows that when you look at the skills that people need to be confident and capable in the workplace— and I’m talking about in the workplace today— left to their own devices, people don’t pick up all the skills they need. And what that does is it leaves them vulnerable and it leaves their company vulnerable. And the biggest gap according to the Essential Digital Skills Index that’s published every year by Lloyds Banking Group, the biggest gaps are around internet safety and problem solving. And the safety one is one that really concerns me because what it means is people are genuinely left vulnerable. Problem solving is, that’s important too, but the safety one I think is really important because it leaves individuals and the organisations that they work for vulnerable. And what tends to happen is you focus on the things that you, you know, we’re all time poor, so you focus on the immediate. So just allowing people to get on with it means that they will have capability gaps because they just won’t get to all of it. So being really clear, what are the skills that we all need to be successful at work in a digital society? And today there are 20 skills that the government and industry have defined and today 23 million people of working age cannot do all 20 of those tasks. Now, that sounds a huge number, and it is a huge number, but obviously you can then break that down, and some people can do quite a few tasks and some people can’t do any. But actually, let’s focus on that big picture: 23 million people can’t do all 20 tasks. That’s a problem that we need to work together to solve.

Speaker C: Give us a few examples of of those tasks that you’re talking about, starting at something that’s very simplistic and then perhaps something that might be something excusable?

Speaker H: Yeah, they’re all essential skills, so none of them are the most complicated in the world, but things like being able to access your payslip online, or being able to book your annual leave through an electronic system, or being able to share a file with a colleague, or, you know, learn how to do something through an online tutorial. There are 5 categories of skills. They’re handling information and content, communicating, so you know, you and I are doing this interview over a shared platform, which you know, if you can’t use those kinds of platforms, that can exclude you. So communicating, transacting, I talked about using digital records, problem solving, are we able to problem solve using electronics skills, so actually are we able to go to Google and find to find out the answer to something or find other information. And then, as I said, the being safe and legal online, and there are 8 tasks that relate to being safe and legal online that, you know, are there for people to be able to complete as the essential digital skills for work.

Speaker C: When you say safe and legal online, again, what do you mean? Do you mean that people are going to the right website so that they’re not getting themselves into trouble, or do you mean that in some way they’re letting down the defences for their company and allowing hackers and ransomware in?

Speaker H: Well, actually it could be both of those. So it could be things like, one of the tasks is being able to follow data protection guidelines online. Another one is just being able to recognise when you’ve got a suspicious link and knowing that it’s actually, that could be a bit dodgy if I go there, being careful what I share online. Or being able to identify the secure websites, knowing what that padlock means in that address bar, or indeed that thing about vulnerability, you know, knowing when a Wi-Fi network is secure and when it isn’t. So there was a whole host of things captured that are very specific within those 8 tasks that are essential for being safe and legal online at work. And they are the things that really, you know, as I say, equipped with those skills mean that people can be confident confident that they are protected and they’re protecting their organisation and they’re not creating a vulnerability for either.

Speaker C: Liz Williams of Future.Now on how a lack of digital skills are hampering the workforce and the economy. And unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. As Dan Ilett has already pointed out, the Midlands, once one of Britain’s industrial heartlands, is now significantly suffering due to the collapse of heavy industry. A picture replicated across many of the regions, and for them to bounce back, levelling up must also include providing those areas with a telecoms infrastructure to allow them to build the new industries of the future. Something that, according to the specialist broadband infrastructure provider Poulsant, is desperately needed. Here’s Wendy Shearer, Poulsant’s Director of Smart cities and ecosystems.

Speaker I: The whole thing about digital exclusion is making sure that no one and no place is left behind. So really what you need to do that is you need a combined approach. You need, you need the big telco operators like the BTs of the world doing the motorways, and then you need to work with some of the smaller, more regional, what we call alt nets, to do the B roads and to make sure that they can get the connectivity out, a bit like a tree and a branch, if you like, and get those branches out to the, to the rest of the UK. And some of those towns are slightly easier to reach, and then some of them, you know, if you take the Highlands in Scotland or places like Northumberland and Cumbria, for example, that’s a really tricky thing to do. So you need different people who understand those regions, and you need different technologies as well. I mean, you need a combination of things like fiber providers, but they’re also looking at using satellites, for example. And some of the technologies as well use old TV white space, believe it or not, so that they can get round over hills and round mountains, if you like, to some of the harder-to-reach areas to make sure that everybody has access to that connectivity that they need.

Speaker C: And we need that, don’t we? Because There are lots of areas. I mean, people have been talking about levelling up, they’ve been talking about the regions, but we have areas in the Midlands, for example, there was the full monty that was on about the decline of the steel industry in Sheffield and in Northumberland, which I know very, very well, Newcastle. We’ve had the decline of the old shipbuilding industry. I can remember when I was doing my degree walking around and watching it die. So to rebuild those, we’ve got to put this infrastructure in place so that we can build new 21st century technology companies.

Speaker I: 100%. So you’ve got, I mean, places like Manchester now, there’s a £5 billion tech ecosystem in Manchester alone. So as you say, they’ve taken areas where they maybe used to prosper and then they saw some significant downside in their economies, and they’re really blossoming and becoming proper proper centers of excellence, and then other areas want to replicate that. So if you look at places like Newcastle, you mentioned there, the Northeast, there’s a huge amount of tech communities trying to build up there. And it’s actually not even just about the tech communities themselves. What you’re trying to do is take businesses that want to come into the area and then helping them to access that connectivity. So take for example, there’s a new film film studio going into Sunderland, which would bring huge job opportunities to the area, and that’s going to need the infrastructure, it’s going to need the capability to create those film studios and to push that content across the area. And it’s fantastic to see areas like that get access to the connectivity and the infrastructure, which then draws in the people, it draws in the investment, and it’s a huge regeneration community right across the country.

Speaker A: That was Wendy Shearer of Pulsant.

Speaker C: And now, for the first time ever on Password, we have decided to give you a roundup of some of the clips from the interviews that didn’t make it into the programme, to give you a flavour of the mess we are in.

Speaker H: I would love to see a national positive campaign around digital that really inspires us all with where it can take focus. That’s my wish list. So 3 parts. It’s about a strategy, which is very much a government role to really bring us together, delivery from business, and then that whole piece about really tapping into the culture change that’s needed.

Speaker D: The All-Party Group talked last year about the need to have, if you like, pathways for citizens, which mean a sort of digital right of way to public services. So, For instance, if you can’t access your GP online because you don’t have a computer, you must be able to go into their surgery and get onto an iPad or something in order to book an appointment. There must be alternatives, and say for instance you’re not digital at all, there must be analogue alternatives as well. There are dangers in going fully digital.

Speaker F: Currently we have the Broadband Universal Service Obligation of providing everyone with a fixed line connection of at least 10 Mbps, which is classed as decent, which is, is embarrassing frankly, as 10 Mbps just isn’t enough for our digital demands at the moment. The way we see it, customers need to have just a better level of service. We need to see interventions to lower the cost of broadband and delivery on the minimum standards and to protect more people, to protect customers when things go wrong.

Speaker E: We’re not leading on anything, and to be competitive in the global economy, it requires a workforce that’s clued up to do so, and you’ve got good internet connectivity by default. Not— it shouldn’t be a luxury, it should be something that everybody has here. You look at other countries, I mean China, China’s had this for years. A lot of countries in Asia have had this for years. The Nordics have got it. So many countries have got high-speed, ultra-fast fiber broadband, and it’s now coming out in the UK. Yeah, we’ve got an opportunity to do something really cool here. I think it’s a real shame that we haven’t embraced that yet.

Speaker B: Things like the Digital Poverty Alliance have tried to push the agenda in terms of policy, and there’s quite a lot of educational interventions. So there’s a lot going on to try and really address this, but I think at the core of this we’ve got to accept that we’ve got to invest in both the infrastructure— there’s still lots of issues about getting digital to people’s homes and a level and a quality that’s usable— and skills. And for both those in education and those post-education, there’s still a real need to find ways of upskilling people to make them both capable of doing things but also safe and competent and confident doing them.

Speaker C: Belatedly, the government appears to have suddenly woken up to the extent of the problem. Jeremy Hunt is pushing pension funds to invest £75 billion in a new high-tech future, and when we contacted the newly created Department of Science, Innovation and Technology for a comment on the House of Lords report,. It very quickly told us digital exclusion was now a priority. We are committed to ensuring that no one is left behind in the digital age, they said. Steps we are taking include putting essential digital skills on an equal footing in the adult education system alongside English and maths. To boost access, we’ve worked closely with Ofcom and the industry to bring a range of social tariffs available across 99% of the UK and starting from as low as £10 per month. And our £5 billion Project Gigabit has already resulted in 76% of the UK being covered by gigabit broadband, up from just 6% at the start of 2019, said a government spokesperson. So let’s all work on digital exclusion. Password and its parent, the technology think tank Future Intelligence, are launching Mind the Gap, a campaign on digital exclusion, the main aim of which is to push for universal broadband because we think, as all of those we interviewed do, that to be in the 21st century you have to be online.

Speaker A: That broadband access should be free.

Speaker C: To find out more about the campaign, how you can support us and also how we can help you, please log on to www.futureintelligence.co.uk. And if you are not online, please leave us a message on our answerphone on 0207 100 1389.

Speaker A: That’s 0207 100 1389. And those messages are then automatically emailed. To us.

Speaker C: You’ve been listening to Password on Resonance FM, written and presented by me, Peter Warren, and produced by Blue Buffery.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening and goodbye.