Baroness Andrews speech

Baroness Andrews gave the final ministerial speech at the recent Digital Inclusion Conference 2009, in which she praised Looking Local for their work and gave further colour to the national digital exclusion picture.

Extracts from the speech

On Looking Local:
"I was really pleased to visit the 'Looking Local' service by Kirklees Council and DigiTV - an initiative which really excites me, and one which provides access to local authority services, choice-based lettings, telehealth, JobCentre Plus, story telling across the community and other services through an interactive set-top box or mobile phone."

Since that visit, even more organisations are using Looking Local to deliver services to their residents - it is now in use by 85 local authorities, housing associations and other local public service partners.

"DigiTV recently conducted a survey, which showed that 70 per cent of the people using the service don't have access to a PC or broadband at home and 46 per cent use the service daily, so its clearly reaching those that really need it."

"It's also helping people to find employment - 23 per cent of users reported that they had found a job through the services that Job Centre Plus offers on the platform."

"This is a real achievement - and a real initiative that can help to cross the digital divide - usable, practical and familiar. And it teaches an invaluable lesson; that the technologies and training that is provided must start from where people are and where they want to get to. For people who do not want a 3 gigabyte monster computer with Power point and Excel - when all they want to do is contact their GP or email their grandchildren."

On Digital Exclusion:
"To consider ICT deprivation as somehow less important than, for example, poor education, underestimates the pace, depth and scale of technological change and overlooks the way that different disadvantages can combine to deepen exclusion. Some of our research is what, we would expect; that those who suffer deep social disadvantage are up to seven times more likely to be disengaged from the internet than those who are socially advantaged."

"The most significant lesson - and obvious - is that simply providing access is not enough. Digital disengagement is a complex compound problem - involving cultural, social and attitudinal factors - all of which mean that not only are we still not reaching the socially excluded, but we have a long way to go."

"Our research also reveals the 'true picture' of digital exclusion is that 4 million adults who suffer from 'deep' social exclusion - that is they have a severe combination of social disadvantages - have no meaningful engagement with Internet -based services at all."

Four of the Digital Inclusion Conference Workstreams on 21st Century Learning, Communities, Health and Wellbeing and eEngagement were successful in producing 20 big ideas which will form the basis of a digital manifesto. Under the Communities workstream the promise to 'Promote multichannel access to include digital TV, consoles and mobiles' was agreed upon. We believe this endorses Looking Local's mission to deliver e-Government services by whatever means the public choose.

Baroness Andrew's full speech can be read here.

Learn more about Looking Local efforts to engage the digitally divided.