Digital Inclusion in the Social Housing Sector, CLG & Looking Local

The recent 'Digital Inclusion in the Social Housing Sector' event (27 April 2009) highlighted the issues involved in digital exclusion in social housing and developed a number of potential actions and initiatives, some of which focused on realising the full potential of digital interactive TV.

The following excerpt is taken from the resulting report:
Around 70% of social housing tenants are digitally excluded. With some 4 million dwellings accounting for social housing stock, and some 10 million people in England living in one form of social housing or another the links between digital exclusion and social housing is a major issue and conversely, digital inclusion a significant opportunity for RSLs and tenants alike.

Some RSLs are particularly advanced in this area and have established innovative services and schemes including choice based lettings, anti-social behaviour (ASB) reporting, repairs and maintenance via digital interactive TV (DiTV), mobile phones, games consoles and the internet. Others are making very positive use of community CCTV to provide concierge style services whilst concurrently delivering efficiency gains and reduced ASB.

Many ideas emerged from the workshop including an initiative to 'Encourage collaborative, shared service approaches between RSLs, and also with national partners'. Specific ideas included - a bulk purchase scheme for ICT services on behalf of tenants, a cross-sector approach to digital TV including a sector partnership with the local government Digital TV service (Looking Local), and a coherent sector level approach to partnerships with UK online centres and other digital inclusion organisations. These are early ideas and along with others will be further investigated for feasibility over the coming months.

The idea to consider 'Developing a cross-sector approach to delivering services via Digital Television as Digital Switchover approaches' comes at a time when increasing numbers of RSLs are now subscribing to the local government Digital TV service, Looking Local, managed and operated by Kirklees Council. Clearly there are many other RSLs that could benefit from the opportunities to use this technology to deliver local services and tackle digital and social exclusion among tenants.'

Looking Local will be responding to the report and putting forward some ideas as to how we can help Social Landlords as well as detailing how we can help some of the initiatives above come to fruition.

The CLG proposes the following steps for the report and findings:

• Hold a second workshop to review these ideas, develop any additional ones and prioritise them, particularly focusing on some of the quick win initiatives.
• Synthesise those ideas that are affordable and feasible into a short action plan which meets the commitment made in the 2008 digital inclusion action plan.
• Launch the action plan in 2009 and monitor progress.

To find out more about what Looking Local can do for housing organisations please click here.