If you are reading this then you almost certainly take online access for granted. You probably use the internet daily, for banking and shopping, for working and just staying in touch. It is easy to forget that nearly nine million adults have never been online. They and their families - often the most vulnerable households - are in danger of missing out, socially, educationally and financially.
Digital inclusion matters very much. It can boost children’s school performance and increase their lifetime earnings. More than 70% of UK employers are unlikely to offer an interview to a candidate who doesn’t have basic computer or internet skills. Being online also opens up new opportunities to search and apply for work. Buying online means better prices - offline households miss out on estimated savings of £560 per year from shopping and paying bills online.
Then there are the implications of the benefits system going digital. The government wants 80% of applications for Universal Credit to be online by 2017. People who are unable to make applications online may lose out; late or wrong payments might make it difficult for claimants to pay rent on time and can only add to their financial hardships.
Affordability for all
More than four million of the 8.7 million adults who have never been online live in social housing. Clearly, local authorities and housing associations must take up the baton, and find ways of making sure all their tenants enjoy the benefits of a more digital lifestyle, and can access important benefits. Cost, of course, is an obstacle. But a recent pilot in Glasgow provides an affordable model for others to learn from and replicate.
Glasgow has a low level of broadband take-up with only 50% of Glaswegians online, compared to 80% in the whole of the UK. Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) is a major provider of homes in the city but only one third of its tenants are currently online (and 90% of GHA tenants over the age of 65 have never used the internet).
Tenants benefit from tablets and wi-fi
GHA, which is part of Wheatley Group, partnered with the Scottish Government and BT to give affordable wi-fi access to each of 138 homes in a single block. Residents were offered a new tablet with connection to high speed wi-fi access points located throughout the building, which linked back into the main BT network via a single fibre cable. Only two in five tenants previously had internet access at home.
The results were very encouraging:
• Over three in five tenants searched for a job online and for 57% of these it was the first time they had ever done so.
• Two thirds of households experienced a benefit in terms of their own or their children’s education.
• Three quarters of tenants say they saved money.
• Families reported using Facebook and Skype to stay in touch more frequently with friends and families, promoting social inclusion.
These sorts of outcomes are exactly what any right-thinking CEO or council leader wants for their community. But there are also tangible business benefits for the local authority/housing association.
Encouraging ‘channel shift’
A big challenge for local government is to persuade residents to ‘channel shift’: move from face to face and phone communications to online channels such as email and webchat.
The GHA pilot found that when tenants had internet access, they were much more likely to use online channels to report faults or make service requests. The cost of the GHA pilot was around £5 per tenant a month. When each local government contact/transaction switched from telephone or post to online can generate savings of between £3.30 and £12.30, it is not hard to see how investing in online access for tenants might soon pay for itself in efficiencies and direct cost savings.
Further down the track, tenants and housing officers will be able to link to internal systems to report and manage faults, pay and process bills, download information and complete other business.
Any leader in local government who is ambitious for his or her community must want to take steps to improve digital inclusion. This success story from Glasgow shows that not only does extending internet access improve opportunities for residents, but it also can help local councils move to more efficient ways of working and make budgets go further.
Michael White, local government partnership director, BT Global Services, and former leader of the London Borough of Havering.
