This is for everyone

This week the UK Government published its Digital Inclusion Strategy and Digital Inclusion Charter, as trailed in last year's Government Digital Strategy and Information Economy Strategy (PDF). This is an important step forward - for the first time the UK Government has articulated, clearly and in one place, an ambition to ensure that the web really is for everyone. Here are a few points that stood out for me.

A common language

A common language for digital inclusion will help all of us work together. The UK strategy adopts a good existing framework for thinking about the challenge across four dimensions:

• Access
• Motivation
• Skills
• Trust

The Royal Society of Edinburgh's upcoming report on digital participation will use the same framework for a deeper analysis of the challenge in Scotland. The UK strategy also establishes a digital inclusion scale to help us think about the spectrum of skills and how much progress we are making. Point 7 on the scale corresponds to the Go ON UK definition of basic online skills, which is the focus of our activity on digital participation.

More clarity on the scale of the challenge

The evidence cited in the report reiterates that 30% of people in Scotland lack basic online skills, and that 8 in 10 say a lack of interest is the main reason they are not online. New research published by Lloyds Banking Group alongside the UK strategy shows that 30% of SMEs and charities in Scotland lack basic online skills. On a new measure of digital maturity, charities are the least digitally mature of all the sectors included in the study.

Partners in inclusion

Making significant progress on digital inclusion is a shared responsibility across government, businesses and the third sector. The UK charter brings together a wide range of organisations that are committed to helping people get online, and highlights the great work being done by Go ON UK to build partnerships in this area. For Scotland we want to make it easy for any organisation to get involved in local projects to boost digital participation. With a bit of luck we will have more to say on Scotland's Digital Participation Charter in the weeks ahead.