Digital exclusion typically refers to sections of the population having unequal access or capacity to use technology to participate fully in society, in the workforce.
And one of the things we will come on to today is about definitions and trying to understand some of this terminology. But whilst in the UK we are becoming increasingly online, people are doing that all the time and that shift was accelerated somewhat by the pandemic. A significant group are still being left behind. So as part of this inquiry, we'll be exploring the complex reasons for that. But we don't want this inquiry just to be something where we come up with new descriptions of what seems to be a long-standing problem, even though it's one that we have seen some progress on.
And it's worth acknowledging from the start, of course, that a lot of good work has already been done by various different groups and bodies looking at this topic. And what we want to do is to learn from that work that already exists and to build on it. And what we're aiming to do is to identify some of the most significant obstacles to actually addressing this divide [...] in the hope of coming up with some of some very effective and targeted solutions. So, this is about solutions and not just descriptions of problems. One of the reasons why we're doing it now, of course, is because the cost of living continues to put household budgets under strain and it's likely that more people will be pushed into being digitally excluded or losing out because of that.
And this situation isn't just bad for the people who are affected, it is also something which limits our potential as a nation as far as economic growth and other opportunities as well. So just one final point before we kick off. And that is to say that whilst, and the very fact that we are doing this inquiry, I hope proves this point, that whilst we must work to close the digital, divide so that the benefits and lost opportunities that some people are missing out on are properly addressed. Closing that digital divide that exists in our society should not become an excuse for businesses and public service providers to reduce the quality of their customer services, some of which will always require some human contact. And I would argue that at a time of higher prices, customers and taxpayers understandably expect an even better level of responsiveness to complaints and queries from the organisations responsible for the services they rely on.
Especially when digital chatbots are not very helpful, whether or not they can use them or not. So that's our sort of intro to this inquiry. Let's get going with our first session, which is very much a scene setter where we will be covering sort of four main themes. Who are the people who are digitally excluded and as they understand some of these definitions and terminology that gets used, economic costs of this divide and the benefits of closing it. And then we want to focus in on some of the issues specific to cost of living challenges and then look at the more longer term strategic issues.
So, can I ask each for each of our witnesses to just introduce yourself and say the name of the organisation that you are here representing? I'll start with yourself. I'm Rocio Concha. I'm the Director of Policy and Advocacy and Chief Economist at Wage, which is a consumer group.
Hi, I'm Helen Milner. I'm the group Chief Exec at Good Things Foundation.
I'm Rolando Morgan and I'm head of Environment, Infrastructure and Local Wealth team at CBR Centre for Economics and Business Research.
My name is Tom Lowe, and I'm the Head of Policy and Communications at the Digital Poverty Alliance.
Okay, well, I'm going to start with the first question and just to remind each of you that we won't always ask each of you to answer every question that is put. And if you're not asked to respond, but you do feel that you've got something to add to what has already been said by one of your fellow witnesses, just signal to me and if this time available, I will invite you to add to what's already been said. But. Can I start with you first?
Helen Milner. And if you could tell us a bit more about what digital exclusion actually involves and the types of impact it has on people. And as I said earlier on, it would be helpful too if you could be quite clear in the different definitions.
Okay, great. If this was mastermind, this would definitely be my specialist subject. So, I think it's important to say, first of all, that digital exclusion is about what we call an impossible triangle. That you need to have a device, you need to be able to afford a device, you need to have connection to the Internet, and you need to have those basic digital skills to be able to function in our society. And of course, the motivation and confidence to want to do it, to understand the relevance. So, 10 million people in the country lack essential digital skills. So, I'm being specific here, and what we have done in the UK, which is excellent, is we have an essential digital skills framework, so a lot of organisations work together.
This is now owned by the Department for Education as a set and Qualifications for adults. This is all for adults. It's set against this essential digital skills framework. So, 10 million adults in the UK lack those basic functional skills to use the Internet as set out by this framework. Then if we look at access that we have one point.
Sorry, we have over one in 20 households have no internet at all, either fixed line or mobile. And that is supported by Ofcom just the end of last year. So that if you look at those two things in and the important thing is quite often people from those two groups are the same. The reasons why people are excluded is poverty. They can't afford it.
And often poverty drives other social factors, such as poor educational attainment. We know that if you're older, you're more likely to be digitally excluded. But it's really important not to only focus on older people. 39% of people who have never used the Internet are under the age of 60, which I think a lot of people find absolutely staggering. It excludes you from jobs.
92% of all jobs are only advertised on the Internet, and therefore, if you don't have the skills or you don't have the access, you won't be able to find those jobs in the first place, let alone have the skills to apply for them. You mentioned online services, both public and commercial services, so you're excluded from being able to use those services. And you also mentioned customer support. And often if you're offline or you can't afford it or you don't have those skills, you're driven to higher cost helplines that is actually costing you a lot of money.
We heard a lot during the pandemic about children not being able to access the Internet for home schooling, which is really important. And I think we got a much better understanding of the need for personal devices for each child in the household to be able to have it. We absolutely worked with families who three children and a parent were all working and home-schooling using one mobile phone. And it's really important to understand the nuances on here that people on. For example, on page you go mobile contracts.
You may have a device and you may have a page you go Mobile contract. But actually, you run out of data halfway through the month. So basically, half of the month you're then excluded from the Internet. I'll pause there.
Okay. No, that's fine because we will want to sort of come back and I think ask them some follow ups. I think what I'm going to do, I'm going to go straight to my colleague, Baroness Fraser to pick up on some of the stuff that you've just said.
Thank you, Chair. Yes. Thank you, Helen. You've set the scene very effectively and I want to delve in a bit from what you've said, you've given us a very brush. Are there things that you can is there anything you can pull out in what we mean by who can and can't access? Are there regional trends? You've mentioned age, you've mentioned things like poverty. I want to put disability away.
For example, can you speak a little bit more about that. And can you obviously the Pandemic was a seminal moment for this. What impact do you think the Pandemic has had on this? Good or bad? And I might have a final one, depending on how you speak to them.
Let me pick up on disabled people. So, absolutely, disabled people are much more likely to be digitally excluded, but they're also much more likely to be out of work. So I think it's really important that as you delve into the social science of this, because that really is what underpins digital exclusion. Regionally London and the southeast are more included than other areas of the country, but also there are more people live in the London and the southeast. So actually, although in the northeast of England, less than half of the population are advanced internet users in the northeast of England, actually, if you compare the one, the people who are offline in the northeast of England, there's fewer of those than in London.
But if you just look at the pure percentages, you would say that London is okay. So there's a lot of nuance. Could I also just pick up about ethnic minorities as well? Because I think that's one that is definitely worth delving into, because it's actually quite hard to get numbers around ethnic minorities because within the whole population, they tend to be younger and therefore, when you look at particular groups of particular heritage, that you will find that they proportionately appear to be more digitally included. But that may be because their population as a whole is younger.
What I was just going to press you on is do you have a sense that those people that are in perhaps the northeast of England and I come from Scotland, so I always think of the people on the western Isles. There are less people there, but they are more heavily reliant on being able to access digital services.
You mentioned the trend towards more services being online, so therefore there's more of an issue if people can't access them. So, is there something in that data that you've just painted for us about actually it's more important the person in the northeast?
I would say that it's important that everybody in the whole of the UK has access to good quality internet that they can afford. And if they can't afford it, they have it available to them for free. And the same with devices, and if they don't have the skills, they get the support to use it.
So I think that you're right, in rural areas, if you're in remote parts of Scotland, yes, you're going to be more reliant on it. Similarly, in Lincolnshire, we have local partners who talk about the appalling, local transport services, so you actually can't get a bus to go to a local place to get access to a free access point, for example. So there are other indicators that would exclude you further. But I think my starting point would be that everybody should have access. And I have been looking at this for a very long time and the overlap is really around income and exclusion, because if you make an assumption that broadband, good quality broadband, will get to everybody, then those people who can afford it and who do have the skills will be able to access it and to use it.
Do we have any data? I mean, you mentioned 10 million adults lack the skills and you mentioned one in 20 households don't have a connection. Do we have any data about how many people have the device geographically? So I have devices who don't have devices.
No, we don't.
Can I just go through a couple of supplementaries from my colleagues and then I'll invite you to come back in. Lord hall and then Lord Foster this idea of data and how we can assess whether somebody is in digital poverty or not. And we've had some evidence and indeed we understand the Nuffield Foundation has been looking to see whether they can develop a minimum digital living standard benchmark. Would this be useful? And what are the difficulties of getting the data together?
So you have one benchmark like that, so good things don't know. She's part of the partnership bringing this together. So, the minimum digital living standard, it definitely is incredibly helpful. It's also very difficult. There's a number of academics working within that project.
But I would also argue that having it doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be action to solve it. So I think it's good to have the evidence, but actually then is that going to make sure that the actions follow? So it's like your basket of goods. It's to say if you are to be able to succeed in Britain today, you need to have these minimum skills and access to be able to therefore it's definitely going to be helpful for us. And that would be measurable, those would be things, data around and say we're either achieving this or not.
That's right. And the first phase is looking at families. So the first phase that will be coming out later this year will look at what that minimum digital living standard would be for a family. Okay. The Foster very nitpicky small question, but it picks up what Paranoid Fraser was saying a minute ago.
We're slightly struggling with our understanding of some of the data. And you use this figure, one in 20 have no access to mobile or fixed broadband of Internet. Is there a way of breaking that down between what seems to me three groups? One is the group of people who simply live in an area where there is no mobile or fixed internet available, full stop. And then there are the other categories of people who have access to it, but either don't access it because they can either afford the device or the subscription, or those who have access to it, but simply are not interested because they haven't seen the benefits of so doing. Do we have those figures anywhere? Because we've struggled to find them.
They don't exist in the way you described it, that they exist in three different buckets, so they're not the same data sets, but you have those data sets but in different buckets, so and Ofcom absolutely would be able to tell you where the ‘Not’ spots are so where it's not accessible. And then we have other survey type data around affordability and then we also have survey data around what we talk about, like relevance or motivation, but they're not the same. So, I think it's about making sure that I believe you can make assumptions based on those different data sets.
There is a very old piece of data, I think it's probably about five or maybe eight years old, that actually said that it was less than 1% of people did not have the internet in their home because of not being having access to the broadband. And what that actually goes back to people living in very remote areas is typically the people in the more remote areas where they don't have the access to the broadband, but actually they understand the relevance of it and they actually usually can afford it. So that it was more about a driver of never using the internet. Actually, you find a lot of people in the areas where there's not very good internet, not very good broadband, are the very people who do want it and can't afford it.
Can I just ask Ms. Concierge if you wanted to say something earlier?
Yes, well, just on this issue, I agree with Helen, there is a lot of cocky of data that give you a sense of the size of the problem of digital exclusion. But I think that what we are talking here is about how we identify these people. So obviously via surveys we can get a sense of those people that they don't have the right skills of people that can have problems affording the connection. And we know, as Helen said from Ofcom, we know which part of the country don't have access to a good mobile connection or a good, fixed broadband connection. But the question here is where are these people so we can reach out to them to help them in that in getting online, those that are able to get online and try to address the reason why they are not online, whether it's affordability issues, it's a skill issue, it's a confidence issue. There will always be a group of people that doesn't matter what will not be able to engage online, in particular in the area of disabilities, but we need to know who they are to be able to help them directly.
But in the meantime, there are also some things that we can do already, so we already know. And in the context of affordability, there are a number of people that find it very challenging to afford a good connection, a good programme connection or mobile connection. And we know that some of the providers are offering voluntary social tariffs. But I can tell you that the research that Ofcom has done shows and what we have done, that of those people that qualify for a social tariff that mean people on benefits, only 3.2% are currently on a social tariff. We have done research to understand why these people that qualify for a social tariff are not taking social ties and a big part of that, more than 60% is because people are now aware.
So, there is something that we can do immediately be other providers to when the people knowing who these people are, their customers and actually made them aware about these social tariffs and explain to them what a social tariff is. Because I think also there are misconceptions about what the quality of a social tariff. There is also DWP, and you probably have heard about Citizen API that DWP offer and is now available for the providers that will make the whole checking whether you qualify for a social title much, much easier. You will put your national insurance and they will know if you qualify for a social tariff that should be accelerated. In Vidanta at the moment, we only have two providers accessing that service.
But what worries us quite a lot at the moment is that as I tell you, there are only 3.2 that qualify for a social tariff that are on social tariffs. This tells you that there are a lot of people that are on benefits that are paying for a standard and a standard contract this day. And we are seeing the providers now announcing price increases, mid contract price increases above inflation that will come in place in April. We are seeing around 14%, couple of them have announced 17%. And you need to understand also that these contracts have excess fees.
So, we are going to see people that will not be able to afford these price increases and to get out of that contract, they will have to pay quite a lot of money to get out of this. So why the providers first can waive AC's fees given where we are in the cost-of-living prices? Because this is not only the only challenge that people are facing. There are increases in food, increases in energy all that why they cannot exclude financial vulnerable consumers from these above inflation mid contract price increases. So, there is a lot of things that we can already do to deal with some of the drivers of digital exclusion.
Okay? And we'll probably come back to this when we come on to the cost of living short term issues. But that's a very helpful introduction to that which we'll return to. Just before I move on to the next question, can I just ask that Lord Lipsey and Lord Young each had a supplementary.
Yes, I'm very interested in the very, very, very high level of exclusion among really old people like me, 75-year-olds. But seems to me there are two broad possible explanations. One is these are people who weren't around when the internet first came about. I used to write my stories as a journalist on an old-fashioned typewriter and never picked it up in the meantime. The other is the other factors that often drive exclusion. For example, very old people tend to be poorer than just old people. I wondered if you could give any sense as to which is the most important of those two sorts of factors directing that. She's been talking around the subject.
I think it depends on how old you are. Right. So, people in their 70s, it's much more likely to be that they didn't use the internet, obviously not at school, not during a career and not since then. We also have a factor where which happens often because we're working in thousands of communities. Is that where one partner dies? Usually the man, and he has actually been online, and the wife can't access any of her bank accounts or thing. So that where one partner is actually doing everything for the other partner.
And then obviously, as you get older, the other disabilities will come in, sight mobility, dementia, and those things will then reduce your ability to well, to continue to use internet as well as to not start in the first place. So the age profile and the reasons map quite nicely in that way. Just an observation I was a subscriber to, which before you were born. That's just an observation. Right.
The other thing is, I can't see why DWP aren't actually in. The people that they deal with aren't saying to them, well, look, you should be accessing, so they should be doing it. And I suggest that if they're not, you should be prompting them. I want to address my question, actually, to Rolando and Tom, if you don't mind being familiar, and that is, what action do you think the government needs to take to stop all the fibre providers all focusing on the cities instead, getting them out to the rural areas where we know it's more difficult, but they can use innovation. So, what action do you think the government should be taking?
Can I just intervene at that point? Because I think it's a really good question and I think it's something that we will want to cover when we get to later on sort of question. Sorry about that.
Sorry, I thought this was the place. Sorry. That's fine. Okay, I'm going to move us on to some more economic issues. Baroness Harding.
Thank you. Well, so obviously, I should probably declare I used to work quite a lot in this space and was a founder, trustee of go on and Dot, everyone who are referenced in the prereading. And when I was involved in this sort of a decade ago, a lot of people used to say, why are you worrying about this? A lot of people are just choosing to opt out. And why are you trying to force people online if they don't want to?
The question I've got, and I'd like to start with Orlando if we could, is whether there are economic reasons why we should really care about how digitally included we are as a country and what you think the economic consequences of digital exclusion are in the UK. And the flip side of that, what the opportunities might be for economic growth if we could unlock greater digital inclusion, or whether in fact those people challenging me and Helen and others a decade ago were actually right and we shouldn't be that fast about it. Sure.
So our firm CBR undertook some research for the Good Things Foundation, and what we did is explore different benefit streams through which digital inclusion at the basic level can generate benefits to the economy. So in particular, we found a range of benefits that relate to the kind of things that you're mentioning.
So, for instance, there are benefits in respect to government efficiency and benefits, the NHS, for instance, if there's enhanced skills amongst the users of those systems. So, speaking to your first point, I think why it is kind of important for people to be engaged even if they may not want to. For instance, if the government wants to have digital by default and increasingly have services provided online, that is only feasible if the users have the ability to access that. And so you can't have services at 100% online unless in general, a large percentage of people can access those services. So there's a kind of almost equilibrium either way, all online or whatnot?
And then you create inefficiencies if you have to kind of duplicate your services both on and offline, which you will have to do to some extent, but you want to minimise that, ideally. More generally, in terms of the consequences of digital exclusion in general, obviously those who are digitally excluded will be able to play a limited role in the economy. And so different kind of things that we explored were the extent to which they may miss out on obtaining jobs, for instance, or what. We looked at the benefits of being able to obtain a wider range of jobs and better paid jobs, so higher wages, and looking at the benefits of that to the economy. Not only that, but people in terms of digital exclusion, you miss out on being able to say, shop online, find potential savings, kind of find the best deals and also save time.
Savings a big thing. So kind of as you flip that around, obviously there's hundreds of billions of pounds of benefits and over time that accumulates in terms of billions of pounds of benefits to potentially the economy through not only the kind of government efficiencies I mentioned or being able to access appointments online and having time savings, et cetera. Through that means. But for instance, corporations have benefits through being able to have better fill vacancies more easily by having a wider pool of applicants. And also the government gets revenues as you increase employment and earnings through high skill levels.
In the report we did, we only looked at the basic level. But as you think about our skills more generally, and basic skills are going to naturally lead to high level skills, that's going to become more and more important.
So the potential gains of digital inclusion and the ramifications in terms of the extent to which that's connected to higher level skills could be definitely significant both annually and then as you accumulate that over time. And if I could just have one follow up, your report attempts to quantify that. Yes.
I wonder if you could just sort of put on the record the scale that you described to this and how you did that quantification. Sure. So in terms of the scale, firstly, we found that what we did is a benefit cost analysis. So we looked at the potential cost of training trained people so that they could gain basic skills and basic digital skills, which we, we estimated to be at 1.4 billion over ten year periods, 2023, and over ten year appraisal periods and the accompanying economic benefits, an estimated £13.7 billion over that period in terms of 2022 prices. So we use discounting and standard approach used within government and just in terms of how you can elevate the cost of the benefits, that's a ratio of benefits to costs of about 9.48 or just below ten and a net present value of 12.2 billion.
So looking at the arithmetic difference between the two in terms of how we did that, what we, what we did is we took data from the Lloyd Consumer Digital Index on the extent to which there's preference of digital exclusion among people. And we found and that gave evidence of 11.5 million people in 2021. And we made an estimate in the report that that would fall to 10.6 million by the end of this year. And then we estimated how that would organically fall over the period and that would leave us a certain amount of people at the end who would need training. That was about 5.8 million and 3.7 million of those were over 75.
So that was something that kind of confirmed some of the things that we're discussing before. And then what we did is looked at nine benefit streams to say if those people were trained, how are the different ways those people would accrue benefits through these different streams? And then we tossed that up over the years and across the streams to get the potential figure. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. I'd be really interested to hear a little more about how you came up with those. Numbers Rhonda, how did you estimate what the benefits would be? Did you look at the other countries who were doing it better, for instance?
Well, what we did, we didn't do an international comparison. We would look at different evidence that's in the literature or public available to calculate the different steps for each different benefit stream. So, for instance, for the NHS, for instance, we look at data that indicated the extent to which they may be reduced appointments, because people may be able to access appointments online or for monetary savings. We look at evidence about the average amount people might save through transactions. It's about putting different information that's reputable, for instance, across the board.
So, for instance, data from PwC on the amount earnings might increase because of increased skill levels at the basic level in terms of digital skills. And so the report we do set out and describe for each benefit stream how we obtain those. And it can be quite complicated, but at least I think you can see the argument and the chain of argument that we make.
We hear a huge amount in this country and have done for far too long about the productivity gap. And I just wonder whether you think this is the answer to bridging the productivity gap and what proportion, at least of that gap it is.
It's something that we do discuss in a report, the productivity gap, but we don't explore it or try to put a quantitative estimate about the extent to which this contributes to solving that problem. I think the evidence suggests that it's not obvious that this would solve that problem, or this is at the heart of that problem. I think that it's obviously it would most likely help towards increasing productivity. But one of the things that has been part of that discussion over many years, and I'm not an expert in this, but digitization across the globe has increased dramatically over many decades, but yet there has been challenges regarding productivity, so it's not obvious that these will fundamentally change things. That said, with the advent of artificial intelligence and the way that's going, we're going to see maybe massive changes in that space with respect to productivity.
Thank you.
First to Baron's Fraser and to Lord Kamal, just a very quick one on the NHS. So you were talking about how access to digital appointments could be increased. There was quite a lot of work done by clinicians during the pandemic around the benefits of face to face versus online appointments. And so did any of your research cross reference against what type of appointments we might want to go online and others that we definitely didn't? So, I mean, for example, getting a blood test results fine could be done online. Diagnostic appointments, various things were potentially missed if they were done. Did you consider any of those kinds of studies?
It was something we delve deep into. Well, we didn't look into that aspect of the specific types of appointments that might be saved. So, I think that is something that could be explored, that could warrant further studies.
I'm not sure if that's been done. So, what I'm getting to you is that the figures that you're quoting, for example, for the NHS may need tapering, potentially, it could be exploring further.
Definitely. If, for instance, that was an issue I'm not sure on the extent of. Also did quite a big study on it, for example. Do you want to add something to that?
Just to say the economic model that Rolando and the team use didn't assume that all appointments would go online. It was only a proportion of the appointments would go online. So, the benefits, I think, are robust because I think your point is really well made. It's the classic you don't if you break your arm, you can't go online to get it fixed.
So, it's only a proportion of interactions with the NHS would move on. One I was trying to understand. I just want to focus on these huge skills. I think it's been very interesting, even before, the idea of digital skills. Skills generally. They seem to be companies all want more skilled workers, in theory, but not all companies want to train their workers. They either want to poach other skilled workers or there's disincentives to training because they think they'll lose their staff.
Have you touched or any of you touched on any of that when it comes to sort of digital literacy and digital skills? Or is that kind of two niche, as it were?
Future now is a charity that works specifically with employers to help them to it's, not training it's around, looking at what they call the hidden middle. Because quite often what charities like my own do is that we're very focused on those who are most excluded so often who are either out of work or in and out of work. But you're absolutely right. There's a very large number, I think it's over 11 million people who lack essential digital skills for life and work and are in the workplace. So unlocking what we could do with employers to how to help employers, and this is absolutely the work that Future Now does within their charity, is how to unlock those the employers to be incentivized, if you like to say that.
We have a very large number of people in the workforce, so they're not unemployed, they're in the workforce, and therefore they do have an employer who could either invest in that upskilling or that the government could incentivize to do that upskilling. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. We'll move on to question three, where we're focusing more on the current impact cost of living, which will come back to some of the things we touched on earlier. Baroness Featherstone yes, we did touch on it very briefly.
I'm going to address this question, particularly to Ricia and Tom. Basically, the cost of living challenges have affected or assumed they've affected digital exclusion. So the question really is when the money gets tight, what happens in digital exclusion terms? Clearly, Tom, I think it is a massive issue.
So we, as the DPA, conducted a survey with Ugo and Currys in December and we found that 36% of respondents are either struggling to pay their broadband bills or mobile phone bills or they have other issues with connectivity. And I think that looking at, say, the data from Citizens Advice at the moment in terms of their most recent data, the amount of support that they're giving, it is at the highest level on record.
So, I think it's a really, really serious issue. Incomes are being squeezed for many, many families. I think in terms of the social tariff mechanism, as my colleague said, I think the take up is about 3.2% at the moment and I think there's potentially a number of reasons for that. I think that there are awareness raising that needs to be done in terms of signposting people, so that sign posting individuals to raise awareness, but also when they interact with government services like the DWP, for example, that they're informed of their eligibility. And I think this API that's been introduced is going to be really, really helpful in that respect.
I think though, that a really big issue is potentially around the perception that people have around social tariffs and whether they feel that social tariffs are sufficient to meet their data needs. And so, some of the social tariffs are offered at a lower speed than would be for some of the more expensive packages. I think that if you look at households who have the needs for lots of data, a social tariff may lead them to have concerns about whether it's actually sufficient data support, streaming, people doing homework, these sort of things that people use data for. I then think the other key thing is the affordability question. So, I think there was some research that was done by Ofcom that estimated a really affordable social tariff for universal credit recipients would be closer to the sort of four to seven pound range than it is the 15 to 20, 515 to 20 pound range that is currently offered.
So, I think that we're very keen to sort of see as people's incomes are being squeezed like they are, that there are sustainable measures to help people. Because I think that we very much come at it from a position that in the current world, internet access and connectivity, it's not a luxury, it is a right for people to engage in the world, to access essential services, to be able to realise a range of tangible social benefits. They have to have that connectivity, they have to have that access. I think there is an argument for collaboration between the third sector, between industry and between government, to make sure that people aren't precluded from access based on affordability.
Just before I go on to Russia, are there any stats that show whether people have actually just stopped using?
Yes. So as part of that survey we did ask how many people have either downgraded or given up completely. I'd have to check the number that have given up completely but I think it's about 27% who had downgraded to a sort of less comprehensive package.
Okay. Thank you, racia.
So Ofcom for example, recently they do an affordability report on a regular basis and the latest figures say that around 1.4 millions of households are struggling to afford the broadband and around two millions are struggling to afford the mobile. But going back to what said before, access to the internet is an essential utility in today's world. It's as important as having access to water, gas and electricity and we have to see it that way. And that is why the discussion that we are having today is so important. Social Thrive I think that we talk about the barriers.
I think that there is more that needs to be done and can be done by the providers to tell their customers that they have social ties. If you go to the website of some of these providers, you will not find that information. So, more need to be done. We do it, we tell I'm sure others in this panel tell people about those social ties or their providers are income directly to their customers. And the other thing that we really need to consider and it's something that you should be aware, you are not aware already that social targets also pay VIT full VAT for an essential services.
So if you are not a social tiest you're paying also 20% on top of that social tires for the It which is not what you do for energy, it's not what you do for water. So it's another consideration for the government. And then we are quite worried, as I mentioned before, about these mid contract price increases that are so high given that we think that there are people there that will find it very difficult to afford this but they are maybe trapped in a loose situation because some of these contracts have exit fees. So you may find yourself that you cannot pay the increase but also it's very expensive to get out of that contract. So as a minimum in the current context of the cost-of-living crisis, they should stop charging the sexes fee because the people cannot afford it.
There's no exclusions in the contract if we double the price. There's nothing in the contract. The only thing that it is for at least some of the providers that if they have a customer that tell them that they cannot afford this and that provider is offering a social tariff not all providers do, but if they offer a social tariff, they will not have to pay an exit fee to move to that social tariff. But if you are a provider and you have a customer that cannot afford the contract and you as a provider don't offer a social tariff, you should also waive the excess fee. And I think for all consumers in general, remember that it's not only the people on benefits that are struggling in this cost-of-living crisis.
This excess fee can be quite high. So if you go ahead with price increases, avoid inflation, you should allow people to switch and go shop around without that exit fee. And at the minimum, if you have customers that are financially vulnerable, you should not be introducing these price increases. Might very well agree with you.
Okay, thanks. We'll go first to Brianna Healey and then I have a couple of other colleagues looking to come into.
Thank you very much. What you've been saying is very interesting about the social tariffs. I'm still slightly unclear whether you think it should be government pressure on the providers to make it clear, just as your ideas be to try and bring that forward.
Absolutely. I think that they have to be more pressure from the government, more pressure from the regulator about increased awareness about the social ties and also the provision of those social ties.
Also, I was wondering if any of the panel would like to say what do you think would be one of another solution for in the next twelve months to try and address the digital divide? I mean, in schools, for instance, not every child has access to an iPad or laptop, and I've heard calls for that that should be fundamental. How do you think that would impact on the work that you're doing?
Can I come back on? So I am on your question, but on the VAT, on social tariffs. So that's one of the things that we've been calling for because it feels shocking that actually the industry and most of the industry have stepped up and provide good quality, faster access for low cost for people on benefits and that that being taxed at 20%. So we've done the modelling if that went to zero, being optimistic here, but if everybody on Universal Credit took that up, that would cost the treasury 151.2 million a year. So actually, if you look at the 13.3 billion that the economic benefits work shows, that's not a lot of money and as we've heard, take up is quite low. So at the moment that would cost 1.98 million a year.
So not even 2 million for the current people. If the VAT was cut that we've been talking to industry and they would absolutely pledge to pass that cut on to the end consumer because obviously that would be the worry. This isn't a cut to industry; this is a cut to people who can't afford it. But also I'm sure aware that we have broadband wholesalers and retailers, so some broadband providers buy their broadband infrastructure off open reach. So again, VAT for the social tariff customers for them should also be cut to zero, I believe, to make sure that there's a level playing field for all of the providers providing social tariffs.
I think that removing VAT on social tariffs would actually boost the take up of social tariffs because of the associated media that you would then find would happen that would indeed promote awareness of social tariffs as well. So I think that is answering your question. I think that's something quite pragmatic that you could do very quickly.
Good things about Ashley. We work with partners to provide the national data bank. So this is providing free connectivity, like food banks, but for mobile connectivity.
We have half a million sims from partners like Virgin Media Two and Vodafone, and we're seeing massive demand, so we have almost 1000 local data banks, so, like food banks across the UK. And demand is very, very high. Sorry, I know you like the evidence that this anecdotal is very high into those community data banks and many of those people have turned off their broadband. So, these are the people who on low incomes who previously could afford it, and they can't afford it. And so actually promoting the national database, promoting these thousand points in communities would also be another way of making sure that people who are switching it off or can't afford it in the first place can get access.
Because again, that has been put in place by the charity sector and the industry to make sure that people who can't even afford social tariffs can access the Internet. Thank you.
Thank you. I've got three colleagues wanted to come in, lord Young, Lord Hall and then Lord Comel. Lord Young, very briefly, it's about using up their data allocation.
It's interesting, I encountered somebody recently was calling her parents back in Poland and she said, Well, I can't afford to. I said, Wait a minute, aren't you on WhatsApp? So promoting it, do you think that's a useful thing to do to promote an awareness of WhatsApp? I said, you can call them for freestyle as well. You like anywhere in the world. Are you doing any of that?
Yeah, I think very much so. That part of what we're doing as a DPA at the moment is developing what we call a national delivery plan. And so, this is a document that was coming out in May. And the intention of that is to basically set forward our sort of strategic vision for how we could coordinate a lot of the amazing activity that's going.
On at the moment, but then sort of talk about where we think there needs to be new recommendations from in terms of government, in terms of industry and in terms of the third sector. And a big part of that, I think, is the sort of raising awareness piece in terms of what digital exclusion, digital poverty looks like, because I think there's a sense in which during the pandemic, the spotlight was really shone on the issue of digital exclusion. And we think there needs to be that sort of maintained focus of sort of showing how broad it is in terms of the number of people that are affected, but also the fact that it's almost a continuum that anybody at any point in their lives could find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. So, I think that it's not just about sort of typologies in terms of particular characteristics. It's about affordability.
It's about where people live. It's about so many things that can structure people's experience of their life and consequently of digital exclusion. So yeah, I think for us, the raising awareness of the ways in which it manifests itself, I think is really, really important.
Thank you. I think my question has been asked.
It's about raising awareness again, but I just wonder whether and Helen gave a very thorough answer, but I just wondered, is there anything else from the point of view of which or tom, your point of view where it would be helpful just to lay out other things that can be done to raise awareness? Tom. And then Russia.
So I think something in terms of a governmental ask, there's a current digital inclusion strategy that was written in 2014. And I think that obviously, in terms of where the world has moved on since then, how technology has changed, we think there's probably a call for a refreshed strategy in terms of being able to coordinate what's going on at the moment.
Because it seems as though certainly over the next sort of five years or so, we're going to see a profound acceleration in terms of digital and services moving online. And we think that that provides the basis to say, okay, how do we work out what the sort of balance of responsibilities is between government, both at a national but also a local level? Because I think local government is going to be absolutely central in terms of digital inclusion. But I think that that local work almost has to be supported by a clear sort of national policy steer. And that's where I think perhaps when I speak to sort of local areas, there seems to be a bit of a gap at the moment, that clear sense of a national strategy and political ownership.
So, I think that's one of the things that in terms of that raising awareness piece and ownership would be very useful.
I will endorse that. I mean, we need a coherent strategy and go from the government to the local level with the involvement of the charity sector, of the providers, and all of us kind of working together to calculation basically, can I just add that DWP and HMRC interact with everybody who's on benefits? So actually to put in just a communication with every single one of those people at those touch points, to say, are you struggling with affording the internet. Here a social tariffs. Ofcom has a list on their website. Here's the National Data Bank. We've got a map of the thousand plus data banks palpal just to have that as a coherent pragmatic approach, just that the government interacts with every single person on benefits. So why can't you use those channels to push out that communications? Absolutely, yeah.
Thank you. Easy. I was very interested in the point about tariffs having gone up because above inflation increases and then exit fees. And I found that interesting because I thought that customers offered the choice to leave the contract, so I had no idea there was to exit. Have you any evidence of people being pursued?
Because it might be negative awareness, but it might be to shame the companies into what they've been doing. Do you have clear examples of people being pursued for that reason, that they can't afford the new tariff and they also be pursued an exit?
Well, we don't have any particular evidence of the number of people that have ended up that is in the contract, by the way, that is contractually what was there when they sign off the contract. So what we are asking is it's not that they are doing something that is illegal, of course, it's where we are saying, given the context of where we are at the moment with the cost of living crisis, if they want to continue with this increases, they should waive that excess fee. I just want to I'm thinking about the court of public opinion, basically.
Honest with cross. Thank you. The data banks, really interesting idea and there's clearly scope for building on that. I just wondered what sort of a response you get from the big tech companies when you ask for them to help in this sort of area. They've got the money, they could afford it.
People will use their services if they were able to. So could they do more to bolster the data bank to have digital hubs and as Tom says, it's got to be local. Are they receptive?
Do you mean platforms? I'm thinking we work very well with telecom, so the telecoms companies are very supportive, particularly Virgin Media, O2 and Vodafone that we also work with Google, if that's one of the ones you are thinking of, google.
We definitely are working with Google@google.org. We work in partnership with thousands of local community organisations, with local authorities, with community centres, small local charities, with libraries, with anybody who I call it a big club with a shared vision because they're all independent of us. But we've got over 2000 across the country. Digital inclusion hubs we call these, and that many of those are these data banks. So, in that local community, so that's so important because they can reach in and actually find those people who aren't being reached in any other way.
So particularly not being reached by further education. For example, the formal education sector who spend millions of pounds on adult learning, aren't reaching these people either. So informal, very, very local, but they need help and support. So we bring them together within the National Digital Inclusion Network so that they can interact with one another. We provide them with training, with support, with capacity building, with the data bank.
We also have a device bank where you can put when companies are giving us their old laptops and other technology to get the devices to them as well. So, if they are part of that, they can join in and to help those local people. So, we need more of them. There are definitely more that can join in. It's all free to them.
Everything is free to them, and everything is free to the beneficiaries through the system that we have, but particularly a lot of those at the local level, and this started in 2010 with Austerity, that money has been cut and cut and cut and cut at that local level. So, for many of them, they are very much hand to mouth and of course, the cost of living crisis utility bills is affecting them and their ability to survive as well. But they're amazing organisations and we throw our arms around them and support them. But Tom, is there any way to quantify what the companies are putting in to fill this gap?
I'm not sure. Obviously, as part of a lot of the bigger companies CSR agendas, they're interested in what they can do to support and I think they see action towards fixing the digital divide as a big priority. So, we work very closely with Currys, for example, who are very interested in what they can do to support this agenda. I'd agree, though, with Helen. I think that despite a lot of support, there's always more, I think, that needs to be done. There are things, for example, around the role that companies can play in terms of upskilling their existing staff.
So we know that there's a higher proportion of people that don't have Eds for work, for example, companies can volunteer, people in companies can volunteer, as digital champions say, to act as advocates within their workforce, why it's important to get connected and develop skills. They can volunteer their time in a sort of ad hoc capacity, sort of inkind support. So, there's a lot that I think they can do and they are doing a lot of work. But I think that to really meet the scale of the challenge, there's still a lot more that hopefully can can be done.
Okay, we're going to move on, but just before we do, can I just ask one question for clarification on the 3.2% of eligible households not taking up the social tariffs, is that 3.2%?
Are they already on a tariff? Have you got a number of people who are on no tariff but could qualify for a social tariff? Is there a growth potential here as well as a reduction in income issue. Is that the question at the moment that 3.2% is calculated, say, who will qualify for a social tariff that at the moment is taking a social tariff. How many people in total should be taking will be able to take is that off existing customers or is that just sort of all people who would be entitled to a social tariff, is what I'm saying.
Whether they're already users or not. Do you have a breakdown of those who are already user, you know, subscribers versus those who are not subscribers? So you know how many more people, you know, might be going online if they were to go on a social tariff?
No, not that I can think of, but we can take a look and see whether there is anything if I'm so your question is, of all of the people who are eligible for social tariffs, how many of them have no tariff whatsoever right now? And we don't have that data.
Right, okay. We only know that 3% of those that are eligible have taken up a social tariff. Okay? So what we don't know is, right, okay, how many are out there who could take advantage of it? Who would actually bring them into the other side of the divide by taking it up, is what I'm getting at.
In theory, it's 97%, because some of them are already on higher tariffs.
This is a very cheeky ex telecom's chief executive question. Do we think the social tariffs are actually good enough? Because I've just been looking and I worry that in some cases, people might actually be paying more than they would otherwise. But being on the social tariff, do you have a view? Absolutely.
I think sorry, I think that one thing that would, I think, help drive take up would be having a standardised definition of what a social tariff is and how much it cost. Clearly, you'd have to deal with the open reach question for those who are wholesaling the fixed line from open reach. But I think that it's very confusing. They're all different prices. I mean, it's £20 or less ofcom determines if it's a social tariff or not, and they're all different speeds as well, and different data allowances.
So actually, if you had a standardised definition of this is how much it costs and this is how much you get for it, this is the quality and the cost that may drive it. I think, though, others have said that it's also potentially too expensive. So that if it costs £10, £12, £12.50, £15 if you don't have £10 I've met a young woman who wept because we gave her a ten pound top up through the data bank because she could now contact her mum in Ireland, because she had two young kids and she had absolutely no way of contacting her. So that we're talking about people who have very little money and therefore I think social tariffs are worth looking at further because the market is saying this is what they can afford to do as a product and therefore if we could create it more in a more standardised way, I think that would definitely help. You answer that briefly and then I'm going to move on.
Sorry, just to say that we need to be careful with standardisation. We definitely have to have a coherent clarity of what is the social type because as you say, different providers, they are very good social ties out there in relation to speed, for example, but you can find the same value, a very much lower speed with others. But what we need to be careful is that people have different needs. You were talking about families, people living alone. So you cannot have one, just one type of social ties.
So in the finding this, we need to see that the needs of different type of households in that respect and for example, the point that you are making mobile, for example, you sometimes can see that social tariff may not be looking so good when you look at a local SIM only contract. I think that is more of potential, more on the broadband side, I would say, in relation to that.
Okay, we're moving on now to sort of some of the longer term. This has been a problem, this has already been acknowledged, been around for a long time, so let's look at these intractable problems and how we can deal with them.
Well, thank you. Can I just say, it's been a fascinating session and thank you very much and we've learned a lot from it. And of course with our own research and what you've told us today, we know there's a huge amount that's actually going on and we should welcome that and thank you for all the contribution that you make. Our role, I suppose ultimately is what can we propose in a report that will move things further forward from where we currently are and in particular, but not exclusively, what can we get and persuade government that they should be doing? So, my question to you really is, while recognising that there are a number of initiatives, you've told us that we could do more on, whether it's on the data banks or measures around social tariff or upskilling of workforces. And so on? What is the future role of government, both in terms of what government itself can do and to use your language, what government can do to provide a national policy steer coordinating role for actions by lots of other people? Bearing in mind you talked about the new initiative you're going to be involved in coordinating lots of other activity. Perhaps you'd like to start and say whether government should be doing what you're about to do or working with you on it and what else they should be doing. Then I'll perhaps come to hell.
Yeah, I think it's very much something that we've been focusing on at the moment that we did an evidence review back in 2022, which looked at all of the available evidence when it comes to digital poverty in the UK context. And that evidence review has formed the structure of what we're calling our National Delivery plan. And there are a number of themes that we're going to be focusing on. One of those, I think, reflects the conversation we've had today around your affordability, I think is going to be really important, so that's different mechanisms to see how people can be supported, especially those at the most disadvantaged.
Now, whether that comes to, say, the VAT option or broadband bills, whether that extends to sort of cost sharing between industry and government, I don't know what the precise sort of policy mechanism is, but I think it is clear that there has to be more government support to allow us to make sure everybody's connected. I then think the skills aspect is really important. So, in Scotland, following on from the Pandemic, they've had quite a big focus, really, on making sure that they're including people digitally, and they're committing to providing a laptop, for example, for all school pupils in Scotland. Whether it needs to be a case of all school pupils, because if that was distributed to everybody, there's a fair amount of duplication, I guess, of people that could have afforded it anyway, getting a device. But I think certainly for, say, some children who are in sort of disadvantaged situations, that that could be something that would have a big effect in terms of building those digital skills and having long term effects in terms of their opportunities.
I then think there's a point around, I guess, measurement. And one of the things that the evidence review highlighted was that there is a bit of a gap in terms of longitudinal surveys that really quantify all of those different dimensions of digital exclusion. Not just the access dimension, which Ofcom is able to measure, but that whole sort of piece in terms of access capability, motivation. And that's where I think the minimum digital lifting standard will hopefully be provide the basis on a long-term trajectory to see how digital exclusion is changing over time, because I think that's something holistically, we don't really have at this point. And so, potentially, as a survey administered by Ofcom on a sort of regular basis, I could see that being really impactful.
But I think it goes back to the idea of locally delivered solutions that are supported by a clear policy sphere in terms of central government and then backed up by the Requisite funding. Because I think that with the speed of acceleration of digital transformation in both public and private spheres at the moment, we're moving towards a situation where the consequences of not being digitally included are just going to get greater and greater and greater. So I think it is time for government to join with the third sector and with industry to act as soon as possible
It's shocking that the government hasn't got a disinclusion strategy, that the last one was in 2014 and there's one and a half people in what was the DCMS FTE civil servants working on this area.
So, as such, an important area highlighted by the pandemic exacerbated by cost-of-living crisis, it's really shocking that there is no focus around strategy and leadership for digital exclusion. So, let's start with that. Let's actually convene across sector, but with government leadership around a strategy that, although you're asking that long term, is that we absolutely need to make sure we understand how to break down the barriers across the different axes of of this. So let's work on affordable internet access. Absolutely.
The government must take off 20% VAT on social tariffs. It absolutely feels like shocking that that is still there and that's going to that should be passed on. And work on social tariffs I think is really important. And promoting through DWP. HMRC.
The second one is around devices. So, we've created this national Device Bank. So, this is about refurbishing equipment. The UK is the second worst e waste per head of population in the world. E waste.
So we've got the second most e waste into landfill per head of population of all the countries in the world. And I can give you the source for that. It's quite an achievement. It is quite an achievement. But the government if the government could give all of the old equipment that you have into the device bank or into other schemes and we have an end-to-end process, we can get those, it will cost you nothing.
And we can put them into the hands of Beneficiaries, then that would be a great thing to do. And that's sustainable. That's long term. And at the moment, the people who are stepping up to the plate to give us their devices is industry, businesses and other large organisations, which is fantastic. But the millions and millions of pieces of equipment the government has, if that could come back into reuse, then that would be absolutely a game changer.
And some of the numbers that Rolando shared earlier had in an assumption that there is £150 per person to buy a piece of kit, but this solution actually doesn't have that and cost in there, then thirdly, if we're realising 13 plus billion over ten years into the economy, then actually there should be a funded plan. So the work that we've done, the modelling that we've done, is that we can halve the digital divide. We're being more aggressive than the numbers in the CBR report for 30 million a year over a five year period. So that's assuming we get these bits of kit from government, and it's assuming that we're aggressive on affordability and that we have the data bank, but we're also aggressive on affordability around social tariffs, VAT and connectivity. But therefore, if we can sort out the access, then we need to make sure we support hyperlocal organisations in a coordinated way, so we're not reinventing the wheel that we have high quality support, but we also realise that's about supporting and amplifying that work of those hyper local organisations on the ground.
So there's definitely things that we can do for the long term, but we can start doing these now. Normally.
Helpful, thank you. I'm conscious of time. Thank you very much.
One of the things when people ask for questions like this, they always say, what the government can do. What I would like to look at is the other way. Not saying government should do nothing, but civil society has a huge role. I worked with a project that was helping people get into work. The local jobs centre was rubbish.
They said to me, all we want is second-hand computer, not money, secondary computers. And they got local people hundreds of jobs over a few years. So, the question I want to ask is, let's look at the other way. What do you think companies should be doing more of? Secondly, what do you think civil society could step up and do?
Local charities in UK are part of that. Thirdly, when it comes to government, I want to look at it in two ways. One is the pressure on government sorry, government pressure. Either convenient bashing heads together, bringing people in the room, saying, come on, it's not right that you've got these tariffs and these exit fees, but also, you've talked a lot about government spending and taxpayer spending. I understand that's part of the solution, but could you go through the other bits?
What more can companies do, what Morgan civil society can do and what more can government do? Not spend the taxpayers money, but to convene and bash heads. [...] Why don't I start with Tom and then I'm very happy for anyone else to answer
Yeah, I think to sort of link up the role that sort of industry and civil society can play. I think that certainly working with community organisations to increase capacity building, I think is really, really important.
I think that there's so much in terms of good Practise that exists across the UK, but I think more can be done to sort of share these models of what works. So I think, for example, Leeds has a very joined up and sort of holistic local digital inclusion system. But that requires a lot of coordination, a lot of ability for people locally to understand and get the vision. And I think there's still maybe part of it that is sort of winning hearts and minds almost as to why this is important. But then I think it's also about then volunteers, people giving their time to build capacity and to help to deliver those solutions that are going to be most impactful for communities.
Thank you. I'm sure Henry's got all the things that answer Orlando and then Rafael. Yeah, I just want to step back a bit in terms of why I think there's a bit of a problem. I think that establishes quite an essential thing, increasingly essential, that people have basic digital skills. It's kind of like a public good and like an economic definition of the word.
So the training of persons is something technical terms, not excludable. Once you train people, they can go and work for any firm, so there's maybe not incentives for any particular I think you raised this earlier to train people because they can work for anyone. So that's kind of in terms of first principles, why the government might need to intervene. So I think it's recognising that there are these benefits, but there may not be incentives to realise the benefits from firms and to really so that's where once we kind of recognise that, then it's kind of more obvious. Why the government may need to come in to kind of just a good public good is something that the treasury would understand, wouldn't they?
Roughly. It's very interesting, you were saying about people understanding different social tariffs and comparisons, but mine seems to be asking, well, isn't that what comparison websites do or which should be doing so? Are you doing this? Have you looked at all social tariffs and how do you make sure that more people are aware of the comparisons you've done? Actually, when you go to our website and to use the broadband switching tool, you will see that we put a lot of information about social type.
All providers provide social ties, so we keep that information up to date. So, if you use our tool, you will know what the social ties and you will know not only that it's a social target, but you will know what is it. I mean, the speed and all that. So definitely more to do on that. I think, as I mentioned before, Helen also mentioned the citizen API.
That is not going to cost a lot of money. It's already there, the service is there. There are issues about some kind of operational issues that need to be resolved. We already have two providers there. Let's make sure that other providers join in and actually that help with the verification process, which sometimes could be quite intrusive for people that want to qualify for something that the government can do relatively quickly.
We already talk about the VAT, we already talk about the overarching strategy, which I completely endorse. And I will have to say that companies need to do more awareness on this. I think that that will address quite a lot of the short term issues in this. Obviously a long term affordability solution for this. The reason I asked about government spending last is because any minister will be asked by the treasury, how much is it going to cost?
So, I'm really interested in what you think about the sort of convenience and pressure the government can do, as well as awareness, particularly in this area, and also working with private companies and civil society. I think, though it's interesting you talked about bashing heads together before, is that I think we need to remember there are carrots as well as sticks. Right. And that my experience of businesses, is they quite often will respond well if there's some leadership.
So actually, if the government could say, this is important, this is important for the economy, it's important for our communities, it's important for our society, then actually, I think you would find industry may well step up to the plate more quickly. So actually, that providing those carrots by saying it's important and saying that government can't do it alone, then actually you may find that people will come behind it without having to batch heads together.
I think industry, some of them are doing a lot, some of them are doing less. And I just want to say about civil society, obviously civil society can do more, but I do a lot of work in Australia and they have a great expression there, is that a lot of community organisations are surviving on the whiff of an oily rag. So I think that we have to be really careful that we fully understand how tough it is for the small organisations who are absolutely the safety net for our society right now, picking people up and helping them. And so I think let's make sure they're at the table, but let's not put all of the onus on them to come up with those solutions and to do even more work than they're doing now. Thank you.
Okay, I've got a handful of supplementaries before we close. I'll go first to Lord Griffiths, then Lord Young and then Baroness Harding.
Well, first of all, I just want to echo what's been said, an amazingly good scene setter for us and I'm very grateful to you for coming and sharing with us in this way. And in a sense, my question has been pre-empted by the carrots and sticks sort of image that just came out, because I think it's easy to compile a list of things that need to be done, provide a timescale and cost benefit analysis, all those kinds of things. But we do need to persuade the government that the efficiencies that can be earned by appropriate policy in this area will make it worth they're doing these things.
And I was very taken by Orlando's contribution along those sorts of lines in terms of what our economy can achieve in terms of better performance by the kinds of investment we're talking about. And it has to be sold in terms of investment. So, it's not a question. They all know that I'm on the record I like to turn up to date. Very good.
Well, I don't know if you're aware, but DWP recruited 10,000 extra job coaches whose primary concern should be equipping people to get back into a job, which includes literacy, numeracy and digital skills. I don't know whether you're aware of that, but my experience is they ain't very good. I talk to employers, and I don't get positive feedback.
So there's something for you. I want to return to my previous question, and that is, at the moment, what we see is fibre providers all doing the easy bits. So, what action should the government take to ensure that we drive them out into the rural areas where they should be using innovation, instead of allowing some of them are going to go bust anyway? So what action do you think the government should take? I think that it certainly is a classic problem in terms of cherry picking the easiest cases.
I think that one thing that could be looked at. I guess there are two things. So, one is the sort of status of the universal service obligation. So, for every household has the right to claim a broadband speed, of a download speed of ten megabytes per second and an upload speed of 1 mb/second, there's a question about whether that's fast enough, I guess, in the current context, and I think that's something that your government has said it will review over time. But there's also an issue, I think, in terms of the cost threshold.
So I think it's about £3600 above that. A household would have to pay cost towards that. And I think that for the hardest to connect properties, in particular, they'll be out of pocket too much, really, to justify. So I think there is something there around. Does the USO need redefinition in terms of speed, but also does the excess cost threshold need to be raised?
Are you sure about that? I mean, there are examples of people banding together and using innovative technology and surely if they can do it, companies should be doing it. So I'm querying what you say about cost. I think the upper element then is to what extent can you use different kinds of solutions? So through mobile technology, for example, and I think it's sort of a mixture also of incentivizing challenger providers as well that could have had subsidies to extend networks to sort of hardest reach places.
Thank you.
Thanks. I echo what others have said. This has been really brilliant at setting the scene and stretching our thinking, but I'm probably going to end on quite a downer.
So the question I want to ask is, fundamentally, why isn't government championing this? Because you've made such an each of you really clear case why this is a great return on investment, why the sort of social and economic benefits for the country are so huge. And I certainly heard Helen and others make this case for quite a long time, and yet we haven't got that convening power of government, let alone any of the money that you're describing. And I wondered why. What is it you think?
Why hasn't this agenda captured the hearts and minds of government? Be asking someone else rather than, I'm just interested because you've worked in the space. What do you think are the real barriers that are stopping this agenda moving forward?
I think two. One is that it is perceived as being soft and fluffy and dare I say, social justice, which isn't at all soft and fluffy.
I don't think the economic argument has been made well enough, or maybe it's been made well enough, it's just not been heard. I also think it gets ground out by things that are perceived to be more sexy, like how do we get more unicorns in this country and how do we help more people to become programmers of artificial intelligence? Is that the policy sits I'm going to say DCMS sits in what was DCMS and that the digital skills policy. Basically, basic digital skills has been airbrushed out a bit. It's gone to DfE for the essential digital skills entitlement that isn't reaching the hard-to-reach people.
So that's policy that's failing those people. So it's kind of tick done that. Off it goes to the fe that's not working. No one's asking why, but I think it's really about it's not sexy. And the economic argument just needs to be made and heard by all of us, but also to make sure that the treasury understands the cost benefit analysis that Rolando and others have done.
Helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Well, as everyone else has said, it's been very helpful to have all four of you here today to kick us off on this inquiry. I think, just to follow up from what Brownie Harding just said, it seems to me that we've got to shift from a position where this is seen as a problem to, one, that how it can be part of the solution to a bigger problem.
And I hope that from participating here with us today and from the questions and the dialogue that we've had, it would also give perhaps some of you and your organisations some sort of thoughts as to how you can do more to try and promote the positive reasons for action in this area, not just presenting sort of problems that we look to the government to solve. I think this is something where we've got to be able to come at it from different angles. And if there are other sources beyond that which you have already shared with us, Rolando, about the economic benefits, that would be very helpful because I think critical to us moving on this and getting more progress is going. To be able to promote the positive aspects and where those benefits lies, who is actually going to be gaining in terms of organisations or departments within government, all that sort of thing. The more that we're able to help to identify that, I think the more successful will be.
So if there's more information that you can provide in writing I don't want to overburden you, all your busy people, but this is a campaign that you've been pursuing yourself for a long time. So, if there's a result of this inquiry and your contribution to it, we can actually shift the dial as balance Harding put it earlier on, then that's what we will try to do. So, with that, I'm going to draw this to a close.
