UK Digital Poverty Evidence Review 2022

Six key recommendations emerged from the evidence consulted for this report. These recommendations are not sector-specific because the evidence clearly points to the need to share responsibility for ending digital poverty. Some solutions will best be implemented by Government, some by industry, some by the charitable sector, or local authorities and communities. Digital poverty does not respect sector siloes, and neither should the recommendations for tackling it. These recommendations have implications for all sectors – Government, local authorities, industry, the private sector, the third sector, and academia or the research sector. They have also gone on to inform five specific Policy Principles, developed in consultation with the Digital Poverty Alliance community to take the agenda forward. These recommendations and principles will contribute to the Digital Poverty Alliance’s forthcoming National Delivery Plan. Evidence Review Recommendations: - Affordable and sustainable inclusion - Inclusive and accessible design - People-centred and community-embedded interventions - Skills to engage and empower - Support for the whole journey - Building the evidence base

This report is a landscape review of the qualitative and quantitative evidence around digital poverty, digital inequality, and digital exclusion/inclusion that has emerged in roughly the last decade. A variety of sources were consulted for this review. Literature was compiled through search engine queries of key terms and searches of scholarly databases, including Google Scholar, Jstor, and the University of Oxford’s SOLO tool. In addition, a call went out to members of the Digital Poverty Alliance Community and the broader public to contribute articles and reports for this review, through social media posts and the publication of an Interim Evidence Review in November 2021.38 The Digital Poverty Alliance also supported a convening of five roundtables in the form of the Digital Poverty and Inequalities Summit, co-hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Groups for Digital Skills, Data Poverty and the Parliamentary, Internet, Communications and Technology Forum (PICTFOR).

Survey, Analysis of other data, Interviews, Focus Groups/Panels/Workshops, Literature Review and/or Policy Proposal