UK government challenged by alternative Digital Britain
Lord Carter’s flagship Digital Britain report, aimed at making Britain a leading digital economy, has been challenged by a community-based alternative report.
The alternative report, created by a community of people brought together on Twitter, sets out a range of recommendations it believes should be included in the government’s blueprint for a future Digital Britain.
Spurred into action by the publication of the government’s Interim Digital Britain report, the collective has lambasted many of the government’s preliminary findings and has offered alternative methods for making Digital Britain a reality.
The report criticised the aspiration to offer universal 2mbps internet access by 2012 and instead recommends that at least 8mbps should be targeted while the Office of Fair Trading or Local Authority Trading Standards should be employed to monitor broadband speeds to ensure internet service providers deliver on targets.
Instead of simply aiming to get more people online, the alternative report suggests a target of getting 3 million more people online within a reasonable timeframe. It also recommends that parity for urban and rural communities should be central to the report rather than an aspiration.
Other suggestions include starting a government-funded Graduate Digital Apprenticeship Scheme to encourage graduates to apply for experience at digitally engaged businesses; setting up an Enterprise Bank for long term success in ideas raather than short-term return for shareholders and to establish an innovator Loan Schme.
The full alternative report, collated from findings at 12 ‘Digital Britain Unconferences’ hopes to shape the findings due to be published in the full Digital Britain report, out next month.
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Andy Chesters