Policymakers have been talking about the need to bridge the digital divide for some time now, but a report released over the summer months made for sobering reading.
Despite huge investments made during the pandemic, the progress on connecting some of Scotland’s most vulnerable people and communities had stalled.
Audit Scotland didn’t mince its words when it observed: “Momentum has slowed, national leadership weakened, with less funding available.”
Furthermore: “Public bodies across Scotland must deliver on their responsibilities to do more to help the one in six Scottish adults who lack the digital skills needed for everyday life.”
With a myriad of agencies working – and sometimes overlapping with each other – auditors commented that it must be clear who is responsible for tackling digital exclusion.
Whilst laudable efforts were made under the Scottish Government’s Connecting Scotland programme as Covid forced people online, it was clear that there had been a lack of continuity as the lockdowns came to an end.
Eilidh McLaughlin, the Scottish Government’s deputy director for digital ethics, inclusion and assurance, acknowledges the findings made for difficult reading, but insists a co-ordinated effort is now underway to address the criticisms.
Since the end of August when the report landed, research involving the universities of Glasgow, Liverpool and Loughborough has been ongoing to benchmark a “minimum digital living standard for Scotland”.
The work, currently focused on households with children, will take account of existing evidence gathered by the Welsh government and investigate whether there are any adaptations required for Scotland.
But at its heart a minimum digital standard of living will include accessible internet, adequate equipment, and the skills, knowledge and support people need. It is also about being able to communicate, connect and engage with opportunities safely and with confidence.
“It’s an exciting piece of work that has the potential to inform our digital teams when they are designing services,” says McLaughlin, a lawyer by training.
“And it’s not just about broadband, although that’s important, in terms of being able to get online in the first place, but also in terms of the bandwidth, so that people can use it effectively. More than that, it will look at the number of devices that a household may need to be able to do the things they need to do.”
It’s easy to think of broadband and device provision as a giveaway, or freebie. But policymakers regard digital exclusion as inextricably linked to child poverty. Education is another factor.
McLaughlin adds: “It’s about what level of skills do we need within a household of children to be able to function in modern society. What does that mean in terms of children’s education and parents being able to work and access finance, information or shopping, or things like that online.”
Tackling digital exclusion can even extend to streaming TV services like Netflix or Disney+, and gaming channels. Mclaughlin says it’s similar to the past when children of families who didn’t have access to a TV were stigmatised. The same can be said of today’s generation.
“We mustn’t forget that there’s a whole entertainment space out there that’s important for people to function, particularly children, and the kind of isolation that comes with that,” she adds.
One encouraging development since the Audit Scotland report has been the relaunch and rebrand of the Scottish Government’s Digital Participation Charter, now called Scotland’s Digital Inclusion Charter, in partnership with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO).
The aim is to get 700 signatories by the end of the year from civic society-focused organisations to ensure awareness of digital inclusion – and measures to foster it – are central to the way they deliver services.
A short working life group has also been set up to create the Digital Inclusion Alliance, a multi-partner endeavour involving the likes of Scottish Government, Cosla, the umbrella body for Scotland’s local authorities, Public Health Scotland, and SCVO.
“It’s to try and work out how we can actually collaborate better, but also how we get ahead of the curve here, so how we do things differently as a collective and not be reinventing wheels,” says McLaughlin.
“We know there are people excluded. We know what we need to do to help. This is about how we work together and do that.”
These are all good aspirations to have. But a scheme providing free iPads and laptops to digitally excluded people was paused in August – due to spending constraints. McLaughlin acknowledges that some “hard decisions” have had to be made, but that she continues to work with educational colleagues to ensure that it’s not a “hard stop”.
In her wider role, she is involved with the ethics of digital programmes, including but not limited to digital identity and also procurement, ensuring that things like design and sustainability are built into the way government engages technology suppliers.
She has also been at the heart of work to ensure Scottish Government information and records management policies are fit for purpose.
Emma Martins, the former data commissioner for the Channel Islands was charged with looking into the Scottish Government’s use of mobile messaging apps and non-corporate technology following embarrassing revelations during the Covid inquiry about mass deletions of WhatsApp messages by civil servants.
In an age when so-called “shadow IT” is ever-present, with the ubiquity of social media communications, it will be interesting to see what Martins concludes, with her review due to be published soon.
For example, how do governments ensure that records are managed in ways that secure public trust, which is an issue of not only probity, but also about the process of managing, storing and retrieving information relevant to future inquiries.
And also just for day-to-day management of data, which is key to improving the way government operates. McLaughlin – who is unable to comment directly on the Martins review – does however confirm that future systems to improve records management are already being looked at.
“As we develop the business case for the next system, we have to make sure it’s sustainable,” she says. “For example, how do we de-duplicate multiple copies of records, so that we can reduce our cloud footprint. It’s also got to be easy to use, easy to understand and be a support to the work of the teams that use them, not an additional burden.”
She adds: “But also, it’s about being more effective as an organisation, so that we do get better at using and joining up information and data across different departmental teams.
“Having that data at your fingertips so that you can make a better-informed policy decision is equally as important as storing the information in the first place. That’s the direction I think we all want to be heading in.”