The UK Online Centre is urging the Government and local authorities to team up and close the “digital divide”.
The organisation behind IT education projects in the UK said individual authorities are too isolated in their roles to give the “socially excluded” digital advice on computers and the internet.
In its Understanding Digital Inclusion report, compiled from 80 sources, including Office of National Statistics and Ofcom, it found that three-quarters of those who are digitally excluded are also socially excluded – those who are out of work, in poor health, living in social housing, living alone or have a low level of qualification.
This group, the online centre has said, makes up a total of 40 per cent of the overall population who are “missing out on the opportunities, choices, savings and services computers and the internet provide”.
Helen Milner, managing director of UK online centres, told Computeractive: “Traditionally local authorities work in isolation to each other, focusing only on their trained requirements. With so many independent authorities trying to do their individual jobs the digital aspect gets lost.
“A housing authority, for example will concentrate on what is important to them and that will be housing the person in question, there is therefore no digital information [about computers or the internet] being given out. This has to change.”
