Written question WQ91349

We are committed to improving levels of digital inclusion for citizens across Wales. Through our digital inclusion and health procured programme, Digital Communities Wales: Digital Confidence, Health and Well-being (DCW), we continue to work with organisations from all sectors that can help reach digitally excluded people. The programme is designed to provide training and support to front line staff and organisations to engage with and develop the basic digital skills of citizens and enable them to engage with vital services.

Whilst, following the draft budget in December 2023, the funding for DCW has been reduced, we have ensured the focus of the programme will be prioritised for older people, social housing residents, ethnic minority communities and the health sector from a citizen and staff perspective. Since the contract started, in July 2019, DCW has supported an estimated 152,000 citizens with the motivation and basic digital skills.

The Digital Strategy for Wales, a Programme for Government commitment, makes clear that for people who cannot, or decide not to, participate digitally, alternative ways to access public services in Wales must remain available.

My officials have been working with Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) and the Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) to co-produce a short guidance note to raise awareness of the ‘need for a digitally inclusive service’. This will raise awareness of digital exclusion and the need to ensure those who design policy, programmes or services across the Welsh public sector do so in an inclusive way. This should include ensuring non-digital options remain for access to services. We hope to publish this guidance on gov.wales on 21 February 2024 and will be working with stakeholders to disseminate to key organisations including local government.

You may be interested to know of the important piece of research we commissioned, to scope and define a Minimum Digital Living Standard for Wales (MDLS). The research was led by the University of Liverpool, working in partnership with Loughborough University, Cwmpas, and the Good Things Foundation. The Minimum Digital Living Standard is a citizen centred definition of what it means to be considered as digitally included in modern Wales. The standard considers ‘a basket of digital goods’ – the type of device, broadband speed or mobile data and the basic digital skills which are necessary to be able to engage confidently with digital technology. The research findings were published Phase One (February 2023) and Phase Two (November 2023). My officials are now working with National Survey for Wales leads to understand how we can robustly measure MDLS at a Wales level.

To help front line staff and citizens in knowing where they can signpost those who need digital support, we have been working with Data Map Wales. In December 2023 we published the second iteration of our interactive digital inclusion map on gov.wales. The map shows places people can go for support to develop their digital skills, use a device and access the internet. The map, searchable by postcode, provides details of the type of digital support available in local communities. We hope this resource, which will be reviewed and updated periodically to ensure data is accurate, will act as a tool to identify support and improve levels of digital exclusion in Wales.