Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland
People at the Centre

Become a member

Digital Exclusion Performance report published

  • Area of Work: Digital
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 22nd August 2024
A graphic of digital connection with a central laptop screen that shows people on a zoom call. There are also phones which show people talking, articles.

Audit Scotland has released its 2023/2024 report, conducted by the Auditor General for Scotland and Accounts Commission.

The Digital Exclusion Performance report, emphasises the crucial role that digital technology plays in improving access to services, education and employment opportunities, and social connection. It highlights digital technology as a cost-effective solution essential for addressing the challenges currently facing public services.

However, given the many benefits that digital technology enables, digital exclusion can have a significant impact on people’s lives. Digital exclusion can affect people who face barriers such as affordability, digital skills, lack of trust, accessibility issues, and the fast pace of change in digital technology. These challenges disproportionately affect those who are aged 65 and older, people with disabilities, people living alone, those on lower income and benefits and people living in higher areas of deprivation. This is evident in the report’s findings which show that while 99% of Scottish households with an income of over £40,000 have internet access, only 69% of households with an annual income of less than £10,000 do. Additionally, 15% of Scotland’s adult population lack foundation level digital skills.

Ultimately, the report highlights how digital exclusion can potentially lead to individuals’ human rights being affected. At the ALLIANCE, we recognise the importance of a human rights approach to digital technology and in partnership with Scottish Care and VOX (Voices of experience), published our Human Rights Principles in Digital Health and Social Care.

Tacking digital exclusion is a key principle of the Scottish Government and COSLA’s Digital 2021 strategy, ‘No one left behind’. The report looked at how public bodies are tracking digital exclusion, it’s impact on people in Scotland and their access to services. The Auditor general and Accounts Commission acknowledge good examples of public bodies enabling digital inclusion but have recommended refreshments to the digital strategy to set out a clear action plan to tackle digital exclusion, including consideration of funding priorities.

The ALLIANCE is actively working to promote digital inclusivity across health and social care through our work as part of the Digital Health and Social Care programme. In 2022, we funded nine organisations to identify and tackle barriers around digital inclusion as part of the Inclusion and Participation grants. The Alliance recently published findings on our ‘Enabler’ grant programme and the report can be accessed here.

Read Audit Scotland’s Digital Exclusion Audit Performance report here.

End of page.

You may also like:

Back to all news