Funding digital inclusion
Scotland needs a different approach to resourcing digital inclusion. Our report sets out SCVO’s position: start with the evidence on what causes digital exclusion and what works in tackling it, not with the search for a funding mechanism.
Short-term projects, fragmented provision and insecure funding have failed to create sustainable capacity. At the same time, public services continue to redesign around digital channels without consistently accounting for the cost of supporting people who cannot use the result.
Much of the current debate about digital inclusion funding begins too far downstream.
The question should not initially be how digital inclusion can be made investable. It should be what causes digital exclusion, what works in tackling it, what needs to be sustainably resourced, and where responsibility for those costs should lie. Only after answering those questions can Scotland determine which funding mechanisms are appropriate.
This is not an argument against innovation in funding. It is an argument about sequence. Scotland already has a strong evidence base on what effective provision looks like, and needs no new financial architecture to act on it.
What is needed is existing budgets accounting properly for the costs their own decisions create, alongside stable multi-year revenue for the trusted community support, access and connectivity that cannot be absorbed within existing services. That is real and continuing expenditure.
Our recommendations
The first two are the substantive asks. The remaining four are enabling actions and tests. None depends on first making digital inclusion investable.
| # | Recommendation | Principal audience | Primary resource implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Require digital transformation programmes to assess, cost and mitigate the exclusion associated with them | Public bodies, Audit Scotland | Expenditure within transformation budgets |
| 2 | Fund trusted community capacity on a sustained basis | Commissioners, Scottish Government | Sustained revenue |
| 3 | Publish a digital inclusion delivery plan, built on the evidence Scotland already has | Scottish Government, COSLA | Political and policy leadership |
| 4 | Set clear expectations of responsibility across sectors, starting with connectivity affordability | Scottish Government, Ofcom | Regulatory and practice change |
| 5 | Measure exclusionary systems as well as excluded people | Public bodies, Digital Inclusion Alliance | Modest resource |
| 6 | Test financial innovation selectively, and require evidence of additionality | Funders, investment panels | A decision on process |
Together they amount to two duties.
Prevent avoidable exclusion at source, and sustainably fund the support that remains necessary.
About the report
Start with what works builds on SCVO’s 2023 Digital Inclusion Roadmap, which established what effective digital inclusion requires but did not set out how it should be sustainably resourced. It was prompted by the Digital Inclusion Alliance’s Investment Challenge but stands alone as our position on resourcing digital inclusion in Scotland.
Download the full report
The full report sets out the evidence, the six findings and all six recommendations in detail.