Digital Divide Scrutiny Review 10/11
Community Safety and Social Inclusion Commission
The digital divide refers to the gap between those who have effective access to phones, computers and broadband and those who don't. There is also a strong correlation between what is known as digital exclusion and poverty. We sought to examine in this review how the council (and everybody else) might, unwittingly, be exacerbating this digital divide as more and more services are being delivered online.
We examined the three barriers to someone being digitally skilled: access, motivation and skills/confidence and while we identified broadband reach as a factor, it is by no means the primary one. We looked at examples of estate based ICT support from certain housing providers and how third sector organisations, like Hackney Silver Surfers, are supporting digitally excluded groups such as the elderly to get on line.
We looked at the potential of 'networked neighbourhoods' or hyper-local web sites, which have been seen to improve social cohesion and neighbourliness in an area and we examined how the Council is improving its online offer as well as its Hackney iCare and telecare packages which help vulnerable social care clients to continue to live independently.
We made a range of recommendations covering detailed areas such as how to minimise the impact on vulnerable residents of moving services online, and how the Council could make better use of social media and texting. We also made practical suggestions about improving the reach of adult education courses in IT and on how the Council might make better use of its recycled staff PCs.
We reported in July 2011 and received the corporate response in October 2011
The Commission's final report
The Commissions made 11 recommendations. These focused on mapping digital exclusion, providing estate based ICT training, designating a senior named officer as a Digital Inclusion Champion, and developing a strategy for future engagement with telecoms infrastructure providers in order to ensure that clear benefits can be realised for Hackney Homes residents.
Response from the Cabinet Member
Cllr Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor) responded to the recommendations, noting that "I welcome the scrutiny review into the digital divide in Hackney, which has assessed the extent of digital exclusion in the borough, and made some construction recommendations as to what further work the Council and its partners can do to address this". They accepted 10 of the 11 recommendations.
What has happened as a result of the review?
The Commission will receive an update on the implementation of the proposals in July 2012 combined with the Draft Digital Inclusion Strategy which came out of the review.
Many of the issues raised in this review were re-visited in OSB's review on Transparency and Open Data which reported in April 2012. That review has led to the creation of a Working Group to produce an Open Data Action Plan for Hackney and will take forward some of the the recommendations arising from this review of the Digital Divide.
Page updated: 23 May 2012
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