The UK Government is aiming to develop a set of indicators for measuring digital inclusion.
It has referred to the intent within its newly published Digital Inclusion Action Plan, which highlights the currently fragmented nature of the evidence base on digital inclusion in the UK.
Among the problems is that metrics from publicly available reports are produced by several different organisations and often cannot be compared, as methodologies and sample sizes vary.
“The complex nature of digital exclusion, and the different barriers that people face, means that understanding the underlying drivers of digital exclusion and designing effective interventions will be a key challenge,” the report says.
“This is why one of our first five priority actions is to develop a robust suite of headline indicators on digital inclusion.”
DERI initiative
It points the development, although does not explicitly recommend the use, of the Digital Exclusion Risk Index (DERI) too by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. This is an open source tool that visualises the risk or likelihood of digital exclusion in England and Wales, with indicators for demographic factors, deprivation levels and broadband connectivity.
The report also identifies the challenges in developing a stronger evidence base on the issue, with factors such as digitally excluded people being harder to reach, a lack of evidence on the correlation between digital exclusion and various inequalities, and different sets of metrics in reports from different organisations.
Last year the digital inclusion charity Good Things Foundation published a minimal digital living standard for children with families.
