Digital inclusion mapping

This project picked up on a particular thread of the Digital Landscape Review: how accessible digital public services are to all residents of Wales.

The goal of this project was to produce a directory of digital inclusion activity across Wales. The directory would give us an opportunity to spot similar inclusion activities and see if they could be joined up.

Geographic and demographic analysis of that activity would reveal how Welsh regions differed in the amount they spent on digital inclusion and whether they were targeting different groups of people.

Digital transformation in Wales will fail to the extent that it leaves some people behind.

The digital strategy for Wales defines digital inclusion as “equipping people with the motivation, access, skills and confidence to engage with an increasingly digital world, based on their needs”. Indeed, that goal forms part of CDPS’ remit letter and is central to our reason for existing.

Main stakeholders:

• Welsh Government Prosperous Futures
• Welsh Government Digital Inclusion Programme Board.

The project also worked closely with Digital Communities Wales and the Digital Inclusion Alliance Wales.

The Welsh Government Office of the Chief Digital Officer commissioned this work.

We mapped digital inclusion activities in Wales across each area making up the project’s scope:

• broadband
• data
• devices
• accessibility, including affordability
• basic digital skills
• confidence
• motivation

We then created a single directory covering digital inclusion activities in Wales, within the project’s scope, over the past 2 years.

We highlighted the geographic and demographic trends surrounding these activities.

Other project outputs included:

• a digital inclusion map, showing the number of people targeted for digital inclusion activities, and associated spending, in each Welsh region
• a report covering the project’s methodology, analysis of the data it collected and international comparators