Research

The Context

The recent Audit Scotland report on Tackling Digital Exclusion highlighted that one in six of us in Scotland lack the foundation digital skills to unlock essential, often life-saving, online services and 9% of us do not have access to the internet at all.  The report also found that not enough is being done to make sure people can get online, that clearer leadership and focus is urgently needed to tackle the harms caused by digital exclusion, especially as an increasing number of key services (health; financial; education; welfare) move more online. The report clearly articulates that public bodies across Scotland must deliver on their responsibilities to do more to help and intimates that it is imperative that the Scottish Government and COSLA set out clear ambitions and an action plan for how they will tackle digital exclusion. Despite the fact the Scottish Government worked well with councils and the third sector to tackle digital exclusion during the pandemic in 2020, momentum has slowed, national leadership has weakened, and there is almost no funding available for those of us seeking to minimise the impact of digital inequality which, if left unaddressed, will plunge many more of us into further poverty.

The landscape for our work on digital inclusion is the worst it has ever been. Organisations that have worked on this agenda for over a decade are on the edge of collapse, and staff face immediate redundancy. This is part of wider challenges facing the sector, a ‘slow creep’ of stripped finances and austerity.

‘It seemed downplayed at the start, but to see the pace at which things are being removed is distressing.’

Our Response

We’ve come together to collectively express our concern for the future and to call for immediate action from the Scottish Government and COSLA. Our insights come from key organisations that have worked specifically in digital inclusion for over a decade and whose collective work has both informed and delivered national projects including Connecting Scotland. These include but are not limited to:

• Simon Community Scotland
• Glasgow Disability Alliance
• Red Chair Highland
• Mhor Collective

(all links will take you to example insights and evidence from the specialist organisations) 

In the forthcoming months, twenty people whose sole focus is digital inclusion will lose their jobs (several are already in the redundancy phase). While this is, on an individual level, a catastrophe, it is something we are familiar with in the third sector.

A greater concern is that these twenty people have supported 7020 people in face-to-face settings over the last year, plus approximately 3000 more receiving support remotely. More than 10,000 people have been assisted in accessing support at the point of need, meaning they can use the internet effectively to live a life they value.

Digital exclusion never comes alone. The people accessing these lifeline services tend to be those already facing complex challenges and social inequalities: systemic poverty; disability; age. The challenges are faced by people experiencing and at risk of homelessness; by refugees and asylum seekers; by young people who are care experienced; by women and girls fleeing violence. They are the ones who will suffer when our services can’t reach them.

Removing these services adds to their precarity and contributes to the burdens they already carry. It becomes a matter of life and death. Our organisations are trying to shore up the flood: ‘We are spending all our reserves buying devices and we can’t continue this’

What will digital support look like for people if your role or organisation can’t provide it?

‘We let these people down at every stage, and now we’re failing them again. It’s shameful.’

We asked these key services: What will digital support look like for people if your role or organisation can’t provide it? The insights were bleak.

Devices and Data

Our group reported the extent to which many of us are falling at the first hurdle – with no access to devices or data and no obvious strategy for investing in access.

Support at point of need

Our organisations work with some of the most marginalised groups of people in Scotland. We are working with people experiencing homelessness, and meeting them literally in the street. We are standing alongside people with disabilities, campaigning for better. We are supporting older adults in community spaces; working with refugees and asylum seekers in their own communities; with young people who are care experienced.

Digital inclusion, in our work, is not a ‘class’ nor a ‘workshop’ but rather a relational approach of connection and care. As one organisation noted:

‘So often the first ten minutes is touching in, we’re often the only human contact a person has in the week and maybe that’s the only thing that keeps you going’.

Our work is so much more than delivering digital skills: it’s meeting people where they’re at, walking alongside them and developing contextualised support that both opens up opportunities and keeps them safer from the online harms that might come to them in their particular situation. We understand both the complexities of peoples’ lives and how this corresponds to the complexity of the digital space and we don’t think this is something that sits in isolation. We need to be where people need us.

‘People’s carers will be leaned on. A carer, who’s in for 15 minutes to provide personal care, cook a meal – but who else can offer that support? This isn’t fair or reasonable.’

The private sector: a knight in shining armour? No.

The group was also unanimous in their belief that while the private sector may offer small elements of support to small parts of the challenge, there is little suggestion that the sector might meaningfully change the landscape for people most in need of support. As one organisation noted:

‘The people who will need the most support are the ones who won’t get it from the private sector’. 

What does public sector response look like?

There is no doubt that the public and private sector are digitising services at pace, and often rely heavily on the third sector to ‘do the heavy lifting’ supporting meaningful access to these services.  Numerous examples were given of this disconnect: the way in which the public sector depends on third sector to address digital exclusion, with all of our organisations delivering support to users of public sector services.

“We’re getting more referrals from organisations like the local authority, the justice system, NHS, and they refer but they are not prioritising this in any way, just outsourcing it.”

‘The local authority approaches us and asks us to do that work, to train, support and set a person up but doesn’t pay for that.’

There is a willingness and a commitment from all of our organisations to do more, to change the direction of travel and to support the public sector in our community-facing place-based approaches, but we cannot do this without resource. It is an unreasonable expectation that ‘someone else’ will be responsible for engagement: without funding to support those who are offline to engage with digitised services, those furthest away from digital participation will face further marginalisation, exclusion, disconnection and inequality.

What does this mean for the actions highlighted in Audit Scotland?

Audit Scotland calls for an urgent response: this does not appear to be happening.

We have not yet had sight of a refreshed digital inclusion strategy and do not understand how Scottish Government and COSLA will be able to ‘make use of existing work in the area’ nor ‘map local resources and assets’ if none of our services exist and we do not see the public sector alone reaching those most in need of help. Instead, we see those referring to us, drawing on our relationships, trust, knowledge and insight. This isn’t a bad thing in itself. The third sector is well placed to respond to people at point of need, within communities. But our context is changing; our budgets are strapped.

“None of the Audit Scotland report was news to us, instead they were just confirming what we knew. But the sad thing is that everything is going backwards.”

“The actions have been left to us to pick up the pieces, yet we’re the ones at risk.”

We welcome, of course, any potential collaborations – but these cannot exist on goodwill alone. Investment and a continuing, tangible commitment are essential to ensure that digital inequality does not add to the burden of those of us struggling already.

Digital inclusion is everyone’s responsibility.

“Maybe it’s because we’ve tried so hard. We’ve been reliable, we’ve been trustworthy. They’ll understand the value when they lose us.”

In an ever-digitising Scotland, we’re constantly told of the benefits of moving online, including for essential services – cost savings, naturally, but also increased reach, convenience and ease of access. Yet this shows the short-sightedness of disconnecting digital inclusion support. Once again we see digital as a luxurious privilege, rather than a lifeline. Downstream, our essential services pivot (as they must) to meet the needs of those in utter crisis in a landscape of austerity. However, digital inclusion must be part of emergency response and must be funded accordingly.  The disconnect, post-Covid lockdowns, feels jarring, yet one organisation told us

“We had one of our service users contact her MP. She was worried about what’s happening, and she was told digital just isn’t a priority.”

Digital exclusion is:

• Accessibility exclusion, where people are unable to reach services or people that are too tricky or faraway.
• Financial exclusion, with £900 more outlay per year, incurring 50% higher food costs.
• Social exclusion, where connections to loved ones are shut down and sources of entertainment or joy are placed out of reach
• Health exclusion, where appointments, services and vital connections are beyond the grasp of people in need

“We offer an open door policy, but if that isn’t an option for people, what are they going to do? I really worry for them, I really do.”

Our Call for Action

We have a two-way problem, where the need is increasing and support is diminishing. This is unsustainable and loses us ground in addressing inequalities. We ask:

•  In the short term, crucial frontline digital inclusion work in Scotland must be funded. Our organisations, and others, are facing an end to our work, and the stark realities of our community members mean that this simply can’t happen without dire consequences.
•  In the medium term, for the creation of a Minimum Digital Inclusion Standard for Scotland: a clear, lasting, tangible plan for nationwide digital inclusion activity. This should be coupled with an analysis that maps the true costs – economic and social – of digital exclusion against investment in high-quality third-sector digital inclusion support.
•  In the longer term, Scottish digital inclusion needs an end to piecemeal funding models and a move towards long-term support for the perpetual needs of a thriving, digital nation. This must sit alongside demonstrable leadership, with associated actions and resources, on tackling digital poverty with the understanding that it is caused by, and is the cause of, wider poverty.

Without these changes, our communities and the organisations that serve them face higher costs, greater deprivation and increased immiseration.

And yet there remains another profound disconnect: The solutions are already here, and are proven. We are here. What Scotland needs now from COSLA and the Scottish Government is the will to act.