Addressing Digital Exclusion in the North East

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In September of this year, IPPR North produced a report on Addressing Digital Exclusion in North East England. The comprehensive report includes guidance for employers for what they can do to help.

Digital exclusion has been an issue long before the Covid-19 pandemic, but since it began, reliance on access to digital services has increased since many people started to attend school and work from home. The boundaries between our virtual and daily lives are becoming increasingly blurred, and it even became difficult to meet your basic needs throughout the height of the pandemic lockdowns if you either did not have access to, or did not have the skills to navigate, the internet. The report states that digital exclusion is not just a matter of access, with a range of other complex challenges relating to digital literacy such as accessibility, confidence, and safety lying beneath. Digital exclusion therefore exists on a spectrum. The four overlapping barriers to digital inclusion that the report highlighted are:

  • Lack of connectivity, either due to infrastructure provision or affordability
  • Lack of access to devices
  • Lack of skills and confidence, including life skills, work skills, and understanding online safety
  • Lack of inclusive digital design which accounts for accessibility needs

Although it cannot be definitively said how many people in the North East are digitally excluded according to this definition, particularly because there is a lack of data available on digital exclusion at local and regional levels, there is evidence that the North East has higher levels of digital exclusion than the rest of England, particularly in rural areas.

Digital inequalities are closely associated with other dimensions of inequality and can exacerbate these further. For instance, the key groups affected by digital exclusion include disabled people (who are often affected due to poor service design such as lack of screen reader compatibility or access to specific software or hardware) and asylum seekers (who are often locked out of language support or digital skills programmes due to insecure immigration status and receive insufficient financial support to access devices or a secure connection). These already disadvantaged groups’ digital exclusion is then a ‘gateway’ to further inequalities such as an inability to access certain services, opportunities, benefits, or difficulty engaging in social, political and economic life. This makes the need for long-term public policy solutions all the more pressing, especially when many of the shifts to digital brought on by the pandemic appear here to stay, while some of the support offered to digitally excluded people throughout the pandemic has already started to be withdrawn.

The report set out many recommendations for public policy solutions, including the right to access to a minimum 10Mbit/s connection at home regardless of income, the right to essential digital skills, and the right to affordable access to devices such as through loan-schemes or access through libraries and other public sector facilities. Also, because digital exclusion is deeply intertwined with other inequalities and deprivation, specific support should be given to these groups to target the specific forms of exclusion they face.

The report also outlined guidance for businesses, including:

  • Due to their deep understanding of local communities and their strong connections, organisations in the voluntary sector should work with public and private organisations with the aim to be the primary deliverers for digital inclusion initiatives. Local enterprises should seek to work with these social enterprises in order to promote digital inclusion initiatives within the private sector.
  • All public service providers should ensure that digital isn’t the only option – offer a suitable offline alternative for anyone who is unable to access digital services for any reason.
  • Website designers should implement inclusive service design and address language barriers on websites.
  • All employers should support their employees with digital skills development regardless of their role. Ensuring that all employees meet a basic level of digital skills will not only prepare them for the future, but also for their non-working life.

Read the full report by IPPR North here.

If you are interested in upskilling your employees with digital skills, Northumbria University is holding an informative webinar tomorrow, on Friday 10th December, 10am–11am in which you can find out more about their Skills Programmes with the Institute of Coding in software development and data science. Businesses have been offered a 70% subsidy, while individuals who mee the eligibility criteria can also take part in these for free. There are also free digital skills courses for all levels designed by Accenture over at Future Learn, and basic courses on Learn My Way, Make It Click, Microsoft, and Lloyds.

Freya Thompson

Knowledge and Research Executive

@NEEChamberFreya

Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash

New Report Reveals Devastating Inequalities Faced by Northern Children

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A major new report, Child of the North, produced by the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) and N8 Research Partnership outlines the inequalities faced by children growing up in the North post-pandemic compared to those in the rest of the country.

Over forty leading academics from across the North of England wrote of the wide range of factors disproportionately impacting our children, including increased chances of poverty, obesity, being in care, and death under the age of one. Children of the North were lonelier throughout the pandemic, and they also missed more schooling throughout this time, which will cost an estimated £24.6 billion in lost wages over lifetime earnings, while the mental health conditions they developed during the pandemic could cost them an additional £13.2 billion. The North also faced more cuts to spending on Sure Start children’s centres — a shocking £412 per eligible child on average, compared to only £283 in the rest of England. In addition, the one in five children who are from an ethnic minority in the North are more likely to live in deprived areas than children from ethnic minorities elsewhere.

The North East stats:

  • The North East has the highest child poverty rate before housing costs at 30% and the 2nd highest after housing costs at 37%
  • Between 2011/12-13/14 and 2017/18-19/20, the child poverty rate increased by 11% in the North East (compared to 3% for the UK as a whole)
  • Almost half of Middlesbrough’s local authorities (48%) are among those with the 10% highest child poverty rates nationally. This is the highest proportion nationally. Hartlepool follows with 43%, which is the 3rd highest nationally
  • By the 2nd half of the autumn 2020 term, pupils in the North East experienced 4.0 months learning loss in primary maths (compared to less than a month in the South West and London) and a 2.0 month loss in reading (the greatest in the country)
  • Children in the North East are most likely to be eligible for Free School Meals (27.5%)
  • Prevalence of low and very low household food security was 11% in the North East (compared to 6% in the South East and 8% in England as a whole) and when marginal food security is considered, the prevalence rises to 18% (compared to 11% in the South East and 14% for England as a whole)
  • The North East is the region with the highest persistent overall rates of children in care
  • The North East has the highest under 18s conception rate
  • The North East has the highest prevalence of obesity at age 17
  • Domestic abuse rates are highest in the North East, where the rate is 19 per 1,000 population (almost double the London rate)

As a result, children growing up in the North “get a bad deal” with worse outcomes “across the board” says David Taylor Robinson, who is co-lead author of the report and Professor of Public Health and Policy at the University of Liverpool, and yet these inequalities are preventable. Kate Pickett, another co-lead author and Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York, states that levelling up the North should be just as much about creating opportunities for children as it is about infrastructure, and that “investment in children creates high returns and benefits for society as a whole.”

This includes “high returns and benefits” for the economy, with the report explaining that the well-known ‘productivity gap’ between the North and the rest of England, which costs the UK around £44bn a year and is predicted to grow, has its origins in poor health care. In essence, the relatively poor health care in the North has a profound impact on child health and development, which then impacts these children’s ability to grow up to be healthy, productive adults in the future, and the pandemic has exacerbated this. Previously, a 2018 ‘Health for Wealth’ report found that improving health in the North would reduce the regional gap in productivity by 30% and generate an additional £13.2 billion in UK GDP.

The authors put forward a large set of recommendations which aim to tackle the inequalities suffered by Northern children over the course of the pandemic, which includes urging the government to invest in early years services and other welfare, health and social care systems that support children’s health, particularly in the most deprived areas and areas most affected by the COIVD-19 pandemic. They state the need for greater support for children’s educational development in the post-pandemic years in order to ‘make-up’ for lost development of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The UK is already ranked as one of the lowest (169 out of 182) for its ability to deliver on key areas of children’s rights, prompting the report to advocate for children’s rights to be placed at the heart of COVID-19 recovery plans.

As for what the report says businesses can do to help, they encourage local businesses to pay staff the Living Wage, get involved in multi-component employment interventions to decrease unemployment among young people, and connect with and support educational establishments. The report states that “schools can help businesses to engage and understand places and their people, and help our businesses and enterprise initiatives target investment more effectively, and thereby drive social mobility.”

Read the NHSA and N8 Research Partnership’s full report here and their summary here.

Freya Thompson

Knowledge and Research Executive

@NEEChamberFreya

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash