SCVO’s response to DSIT’s Digital Inclusion Action Plan 

Recently, we submitted our response to the UK Government’s Call for Evidence on the Digital Inclusion Action Plan—a new strategy from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) that sets out how digital exclusion will be tackled across the UK. You can read our full response here. 

At SCVO, we will always champion the essential work of the voluntary sector in Scotland. This was the foundation of our response.  

We also feel it’s important to be open and transparent about how we represent the sector. Here are the key themes we highlighted: 

We need clear leadership.  

In our response, we spoke about our disappointment in the lack of leadership Scottish Government has demonstrated in the digital inclusion space over the last three years. The pioneering and decisive approach shown throughout the pandemic has not been evident for some time.  

Leadership needs to recognise devolved administrations and local authorities, but we believe a closer cross-nation approach could support knowledge sharing and overcome shared obstacles. We urged DSIT to consider how they could facilitate this.  

We need fair funding.  

A key plank of the DSIT strategy is to launch a Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund. We welcome funding that will support our sector and think specific funding in the digital inclusion space is necessary and overdue.  

Our response was clear that this Fund needs to follow Fair Funding principles. We urged that the Fund was open to resourcing the essential infrastructure for digital inclusion – people and places, not just devices and connectivity.  

We need to back the knowledge and networks we already have.   

This response was an opportunity to recognise and platform the crucial and undervalued work that happens in our sector which DSIT and others can learn from. We spoke about the work of North West Glasgow Voluntary Sector Network in refurbishing devices, about Harbour Ayrshire in providing pivotal and life-changing support to the recovery community, and about Whale Arts’ approach to building confidence.  

Our sector may be delivering impactful, community-led digital inclusion work—but it’s under-resourced, undervalued, and increasingly stretched. It’s unacceptable for incoming funding to ignore this reality by creating new initiatives or by parachuting in organisations with no understanding of the spaces they're entering.  

We need to understand our collective responsibility to make this happen.  

Partnership is one of the key enablers of digital inclusion, and we wanted to weave this throughout our approach. Our message on this was clear.  

Government must take a coordinated, practical approach to digital inclusion by resourcing the voluntary sector, creating structured links between industry and communities, embedding cross-sector learning, and ensuring fair distribution of responsibility and resources—particularly from those who profit from digital services. 

At SCVO, we believe that everyone is responsible for digital inclusion. We are delighted to see Government taking a leading role and understanding what it can do to make it happen. There is a long way to go, and there is a lot to learn, but we believe the Digital Inclusion Action Plan is a positive first step for all of us.  

It is now up to DSIT and the UK Government to work with us to bring the Action Plan to life.