Case study: Partnership working in Renfrewshire Council

Renfrewshire Council is a leader in establishing a place-based approach to digital inclusion in Scotland. Through the development of a cross-sector partnership for action, ‘Citizen Voice’, and supported by SCVO, agencies including the Council, housing associations, health authorities and voluntary sector organisations have been brought together to understand and explore issues relating to digital exclusion across the place.

Following a Scottish Approach to Service Design process, the Renfrewshire Citizen Voice group were enabled to focus on influencing factors impacting access to digital across the place and work collaboratively to address these within the scope of available resources and capacity. Substantive discussion about not just the problems, but more importantly the assets that could make change happen were key to understanding the local landscape.

Renfrewshire Council, through this partnership place-based approach, has now developed two key responses to identified problems:

• Recruiting a Digital Champion Co-ordinator to address the capacity issues faced by organisations in supporting people online

• Rolling out a programme of ‘DigiZones’ – a network of physical places where citizens can find skills, connectivity and devices to overcome issues around digital signposting and access.

Renfrewshire is a place-based digital inclusion success story because it has understood the importance of the bottom-up approach, identifying assets around the place, promoting and encouraging partnership work, bringing together different sectors for the benefit of people, taking the time to understand the local system and issues, and putting the experience of the user at the heart of the solution.