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Scottish Government launches refreshed Digital Strategy

  • Area of Work: The ALLIANCE
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 11th March 2021
Digital

The strategy sets out a vision for Scotland to fill its potential in an increasingly digital world.

The Scottish Government has launched its updated digital strategy for Scotland,  “A Changing nation: how Scotland will thrive in a digital world” (this link will take you away from our website). The strategy was jointly developed alongside COSLA, the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government, and the Improvement Service. It sets out the steps that the Scottish Government will take to ensure everyone in Scotland has the skills, connectivity and devices required to participate in a digital nation.

The digital vision is underpinned by eight principles, reflecting Scotland’s progress towards being an inclusive, ethical and sustainable digital nation. The document is broken into three parts: People and Place, A Strong Digital Economy, and Digital Government and Services.

It sets out a range of key actions in each area, including:

  • Ensure everyone can access services and that moving services online does not exclude the least advantaged in our society
  • Set out a vision of an Ethical Digital Nation, building trust that the technologies we use are designed with integrity, transparency and use a human rights based approach
  • Use digital technology to increase community engagement and participation, ensuring that people have an active role in decision making
  • Increase diversity in the digital skills pool by working with industry to increase pathways into the digital tech sector
  • Make public sector data easy to find, understand and reuse
  • Ensure that all public services are designed through the lenses of inclusion, offering signposted alternative ways of accessing services for those who cannot or do not want to use digital routes
  • Support a Digital Third Sector, enabling third sector partners and Digital Participation Charter signatories to develop their digital capabilities and introduce new business models

The ALLIANCE responded to a Scottish Government consultation on an earlier draft of the digital strategy in December 2020 (this link will take you away from our website). The updated strategy incorporates several of our recommendations, including our calls for an equalities and rights based approach; collaborative and transparent links and partnership working with the third sector; adopting a ‘Digital Choice’ approach; and ensuring inclusive approaches are used to design accessible public services across all government areas.

You can read the full strategy via the Scottish Government website (this link will take you away from our website). 

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