The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh EH3 6BB.
What is place-based digital inclusion?
We know people tend to seek support from services they trust, and that these services tend to be local to where people live. Communities have always worked to provide solutions for local issues, and assets exist within every place that can be developed and strengthened to solve common problems. Rather than focusing on what’s missing, focusing on what exists can help to mobilise and galvanise groups into action.
Place-based digital inclusion is about building sustainable solutions to digital exclusion which take into consideration the assets, and needs, of a specific place. Action is co-ordinated through strong and trusted partnerships and informed by regular communication with citizens.
Place-based working is a person-centred, bottom-up approach used to meet the unique needs of people in a given location by working together to use the best available resources and to gain local knowledge and insight. By working collaboratively with the people who live and work locally, it aims to build a picture of the system from a local perspective, taking an asset-based approach that seeks to highlight the strengths, capacity and knowledge of all those involved.
What is a 'place'?
For the purposes of place-based digital inclusion, a 'place' can be any geographical community. It can be:
- A small community sitting within a bigger city or town,
- A large but disparately populated rural area, or
- An entire local authority area*
*Place-based digital inclusion can work across an entire local authority, but it depends on the nature and size of the local authority, and will certainly need the buy-in of the council. For larger local authorities, we recommend applying the place-based approach with the different and distinct communities across the local authority to better understand diversity of need.
Taking a place-based approach means ensuring the planning, development and delivery of services empowers and enables people, through identifying assets in communities and working to join them up. A key element of place-based working is the emphasis on partnership, collaboration and strengthening assets. Creating strong, meaningful partnerships and developing opportunities for collaboration supports enhanced outcomes through the sharing of resources, information and support to overcome common challenges specific to the place.
Why a place-based approach?
There are many different reasons to consider a place-based approach to digital inclusion:
- In a landscape of dwindling resources, interventions can be targeted and more effective as they are responsive to specific community needs.
- By involving communities we can empower people to shape the solutions that work best for them.
- Using a strengths or asset-based approach, we can build on what already exists and strengthen what works.
- Responsibility for digital inclusion can be shared across the community, bringing together different sectors and diverse perspectives and resources.
- "Local, placed-based support where people feel comfortable and safe" has been highlighted by Audit Scotland as one of the principles for enabling digital inclusion.