Below are some links to statistics, studies, and other literature which could be useful to anyone looking to better understand the causes and effects of digital exclusion.
Statistics
UK Consumer Digital Index 2021
Lloyds Bank, 2021
Over the last six years the Consumer Digital Index has used the behavioural data of 1 million people and interviewed over 16,000 consumers, to create the UK’s largest measure of digital capability and financial behaviours. The last 12 months have been like no other, and the report documents how the digital landscape has changed in this time.
Predictive modelling indicates five years progress has been made in just one year. There are 1.5 million more people online, meaning 5% of the population remain digitally excluded; locked out during lockdown. The report also explores how the pandemic has lead to consumers re-evaluating their financial priorities.
Exploring the UK’s digital divide
ONS, 2019
The scale of digital exclusion in the UK; those who aren’t currently using the internet, how digital skills vary for different groups of the population and some of the barriers to digital inclusion.
Internet access – households and individuals, Great Britain: 2020
ONS, 2020
Internet access in Great Britain, including how many people have the internet, how they access it, what they use it for and online shopping.
Defining and mapping digital inclusion
Leeds City Council
Our guide explains the data we use in Leeds, how we got started and how we’ve refined our approach over time.
Reports
Building the future we need
techUK, 2020
Read techUK’s eight reports from the ‘Building the Future We Need ‘campaign which explore ‘Strengthening Local Digital Capital’ across Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and the North East, North West, West Midlands, and Yorkshire and Humberside regions of England.
Digital Motivation: Exploring the reasons people are offline
Good Things Foundation, 2019
What are the specific reasons people have for not engaging with the internet? How do these specific reasons vary by demographic (eg. unemployment, low skills, age), and which reasons are most important for different groups? To what extent are the reasons people give for being offline ‘masking’ other/deeper reasons or issues, including the role of proxy users?
Digital inclusion evidence review
Age UK, 2018
Age UK’s review of the evidence surrounding digital exclusion of older people.
Online Nation, 2020 Report
Ofcom, 2020
An annual report that looks at what people are doing online, how they are served by online content providers and platforms, and their attitudes to and experiences of using the internet.
Digital Inclusion: Bridging Divides
Cumberland Lodge Report, 2020
This report explores the UK’s persistent ‘digital divide’ and how society is increasingly shaped by new forms of inequality, involving digital inclusion and exclusion.
It focuses on innovative ways of promoting high-quality digital education and participation, and addressing persistent digital divides, to support greater inclusion and opportunity for everyone in the UK. The briefing document which forms Part I of the report was published before the known outbreak of COVID-19 in the UK. It has since been updated and offers useful background to the ideas and recommendations that follow in Part II.
Health and care
Digital Inclusion for Health and Social Care
NHS, 2019
A guide to help healthcare providers, commissioners, and designers ensure that services delivered digitally are as inclusive as possible, meeting the needs of all sections of the population.
Digital exclusion in population screening programmes
Citizens Online, 2020
An Equality Impact Assessment of Channel Shift from printed media to online information within NHS England’s population screening programmes.
Co-design in Health and Digital
Good Things Foundation, 2019
Co-design is the method of involving users (people), stakeholders (decision makers) and practitioners (front line staff) in the process of design.
Digitising Leeds: Risks and opportunities for reducing health inequalities in Leeds
Your Healthwatch Leeds, 2020
The aim of this briefing paper is to highlight people’s experiences in Leeds of the move to digitised health and care services during Covid-19 and pre-Covid-19, with a particular focus on hearing the experiences of people with the greatest health inequalities.
COVID-19
Social connection in the COVID-19 crisis
All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Integration, 2020
This report finds that many efforts to reach isolated groups during the COVID-19 crisis have successfully moved online. But that can leave some of the most isolated individuals even further excluded – because they do not own or cannot afford devices, wifi or data to get online, or lack the skills or English fluency to manage online communication.
Learning from Lockdown: 12 Steps to Eliminate Digital Exclusion
Carnegie UK Trust, 2020
Since the outbreak of Covid-19 the scale of digital exclusion in the UK has been exposed and exacerbated beyond previous understanding. While new initiatives have been rapidly and successfully delivered, substantially accelerating progress, there is still much more to be done to ensure no one in the UK is left digitally excluded.
‘Learning from Lockdown: 12 Steps to Eliminate Digital Exclusion’ is a response to this challenge, setting out a series of 12 recommendations calling for ambitious action from policy makers, practitioners, academics and industry to tackle this issue. The recommendations build on our work on digital inclusion over the past decade, and particularly draw on learning and reflections from the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown period.
The Dr Will Zoom You Now: getting the most out of the virtual health and care experience
Traverse, 29 May 2020
A rapid research study that involved interviews with 12 people who had their care interrupted as a consequence of changing patterns of care due to the coronavirus pandemic. The aim was to understand the knock-on effects of COVID-19 on people with a wide range of conditions who had chosen not to seek care, as well as people whose appointments had been cancelled or postponed.
Case studies
Digital Inclusion Case Study Library
LOTI
A searchable database of 28 international case studies on digital inclusion initiatives.