Digital Participation: Three weeks, three strategies...

April was a big month for digital participation (a.k.a. digital inclusion) policy. Our friends in London were first off the blocks with a new UK Government Digital Inclusion Strategy, closely followed by the Scottish Government's snappily titled National Digital Participation Framework for Local Action and then the Royal Society of Edinburgh on Spreading the Benefits of Digital Participation (along with all the underlying data analysis). Three weighty documents in three weeks is a lot for anyone to contend with - even if they were all published in lovely open standards HTML - so a quick recap is probably in order. There's plenty of common ground: equipping people to make the most of the web is an important social issue, it will take genuine partnership across government, business and civil society, and we need a common language grounded in basic online skills. There are also a few points of difference. The UK strategy introduced a new UK digital inclusion charter, whilst the Scottish Government reaffirmed its commitment to the Scottish digital participation charter first introduced in 2011. The Royal Society of Edinburgh committee talk about an undeniable right to digital inclusion, whilst the Scottish Government urge caution around the language of rights. And although motivation and skills are recognised as major barriers across the board, a detour into the rights and wrongs of broadband infrastructure policy also continues to crop up - particularly for some outlying areas of Scotland. From my perspective, the important thing now is that we seize this renewed interest in digital participation and turn it into real action at scale. In keeping with the spirit of a national framework for local action, and with the support of Scottish Government and others, the team at SCVO is now:

• Actively pursuing, alongside our UK partners, a share of the Big Lottery Fund basic online skills award for Scotland
• Getting ready to underwrite digital participation projects across Scotland, working with organisations that have signed Scotland's digital participation charter and a new challenge fund established by Scottish Government to help community groups get online
• Developing a range of digital participation assets for Scotland, including a database of learning opportunities and a range of free online learning resources for communities and individuals

If you're already involved in digital participation, or if you'd like some help to get started, then we'd love to work with you. We'll have a big refresh of our online content done soon; in the meantime one great way to get involved will be to join us for the inaugural Digital Scotland Festival, which we are hosting in Edinburgh on 16 June 2014. Tickets are free so head on over now to reserve your place.

Postscript

The excellent Claire Mack reminded me that last month's digital inclusion publications are not the first attempt to pull the thinking in this area together. History aficionados could do worse than take a look at the Digital Participation Strategy and Action Plan for Scotland assembled back in 2010. The recommendations are as pertinent today as they were then; happily I think we're now finally in with a shot at achieving them.