Adapting digital inclusion policy for the AI age

Jamillah Knowles / Better Images of AI / Data People / CC-BY 4.0 

Technology is changing rapidly – yet digital inclusion policy is stuck in a rut. Despite massive changes in society, from the impact of the Covid pandemic to the rise of AI, the Government has shown no leadership on this critical issue. And the digital inclusion strategy is so old that it has witnessed two responsible departments, five Prime Ministers, and an astonishing nine responsible secretaries of state.

Amidst this political churn, we’ve seen a patchwork of sticking plasters develop to support people. This patchwork is made up of hard-working, but poorly funded people and organisations with minimal support from central government. Alongside this, the broadband and mobile industry have increased prices by record amounts. The Minimum Digital Living Standard project, which shared its findings last week, found that 45% of households with children do not have access to the connectivity, skills or devices to participate in everyday life.

Frustrated with this lack of progress, we’re determined to move digital inclusion policy forward. Our recent paper, Digital inclusion: from sticking plasters to sustainable progress set out three ‘quick fixes’ that the next government could implement to set the ground for better digital inclusion policy.

Last week, we invited a small group of researchers, community leaders, and tech policy specialists to a private roundtable to discuss both our recent paper and the future of digital inclusion policy. We held the roundtable under Chatham House rules (in other words, nobody will be directly quoted for their contributions). This allowed people to speak more openly, and share some of the thoughts and frustrations they had about digital inclusion.

Here, we share a short overview of what we discussed in the roundtable and some of the key themes that emerged.

Ease and simplicity

Given that we have a patchwork of digital inclusion policies, it should not be surprising that ease and simplicity were common themes in the discussion. For instance, attendees highlighted how complicated it can be to change broadband provider. This is likely to continue whilst the industry delays on implementing its One Touch Switch service.

Other participants noted that supposed solutions – such as the Universal Credit API – do not appear to have led to tangible gains in simplicity for customers. 

Social tariffs

Collectively, we were quite critical of social tariffs. We agreed that they are not fit for purpose, typically offering expensive, slow, and inaccessible products. Roundtable participants lamented the fact that the burden of applying for social tariffs is placed on the individual, and that ‘awareness’ alone will not fix the issue. 

There was also a strong concern from one participant that further developing social tariffs could lead to ‘making a bad product slightly better.’ We agreed that further work is needed to explore what the issues are with social tariffs, and whether a new model may be a more appropriate solution.

Local vs national

The UK has an inconsistent, complex approach to devolution. Some regions and nations have powers over education and skills – others do not. This means that the levers that exist to tackle digital exclusion vary drastically from place to place. 

Central government is too detached to deliver direct digital inclusion support itself. But regional governments can coordinate with local councils, local ecosystems, and place-based organisations and innovators. National government’s role, therefore, is to act as an enabler, creating the policy and funding conditions for local places to deliver successfully. Regional and local actors should be at the forefront of any new approach to digital inclusion. 

‘Joining-up policy’

A consistent theme was the need to join up digital inclusion policy. This manifests in several forms, but notably in terms of funding and people – with funding split between small competitive pots, and current approaches not fully reaching the people that they seek to support. 

This reflected a general sense that digital inclusion lacks a responsible person or department; it’s not clear who in central or local government owns the problem. This allows it to fall through the gaps in both policy attention and resources. However, the group noted that this wasn’t due to a lack of interest, but rather a lack of consistent funding and understanding. 

One participant reflected that they hope the next government will adopt an approach where digital inclusion underpins the entire tech strategy – echoing our recent call to get the country’s ‘tech foundations’ right. 

The right to refuse

Forcing people to use the Internet is not digital inclusion. We agreed that we need to ensure that future policy supports and respects those who do not want, and may never want, to use online services. 

One participant summed this up neatly by stating that we must “acknowledge the agency of people when they’re staying out of digital.” We need to emphasise the right to choose between physical and digital access, and ensure access to all services is well-funded and high quality.

Reflections on our paper

There was a general agreement that our call for ‘better data’ about digital inclusion was the right one. One participant noted that the current ONS definition – which defines internet access as ‘having been online in the past three months’ – is “really harmful,” and has led to persistent assumptions by policymakers about the scale of the challenge. 

However, there was some concern about what might replace the definition, and who would be responsible for leading this. Participants noted that the ONS would be unlikely to adopt a project as complex as the Minimum Digital Living Standard. As such, it was argued that a third party may be required to lead the future development of this data.

Other participants reflected on our essential utility ask, and whether this had sufficient weight. It was agreed that this framing would need to be backed up with action – for instance in the form of our proposed Essential Utilities Guarantee.

We believe that policy needs to be much more ambitious – and we refuse to accept that tweaking a broken system is good enough. This roundtable was just the beginning of our convening work on digital inclusion. 

We’re excited about what this bolder vision could look like. If you have ideas, please do feel free to get in touch – and together let’s make sure technology works for eight billion people, not eight billionaires.