William Eichler 21 March 2018

Scottish council staff sceptical about country’s digital progress

Less than half of local government workers in Scotland believe it will become a digital nation by 2020.

In their report, Digital Scotland 2020, the Scottish government committed to developing and delivering world-class digital infrastructure across all of Scotland by 2020.

However, a new report from Civica has revealed there is not much confidence this will be achieved.

Only 43% of local government workers in Scotland believe it will become a digital nation by 2020, the report found.

The majority of local government workers (69%) also believe digital exclusion is higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK, and a further 44% confirmed digital connectivity is the biggest challenge for the region.

A recent report from ScotlandIS, entitled Public Sector ICT Expenditure in Scotland, predicted public sector spending on digital in Scotland will increase by an average of 4.9% a year over the next three years, taking spend to £877m.

Colin Cook, director of digital for the Scottish government, who was part of Civica’s Leadership Forum also said Scotland had ‘the highest level of basic digital skills out of any of the four countries in the UK.’

Despite this, Civica’s report revealed only 19% of local government workers believed their organisation had a clear vision for its transformation journey, with 15% stating it never will.

Only 20% think their organisation is using data to deliver better insight.

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