Last year research by the Panel found that the public believed access to the internet was at a tipping point, moving from being a nice to have to an essential commodity, particularly for households with children or for individuals who are physically isolated. Research published today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation supports that research, illustrating that for many people the scales have already tipped.
The latest Minimum Income Standard report, which gauges what members of the public think people need to achieve a "socially acceptable standard of living", found that a computer and an internet connection at home are no longer viewed as luxuries but as essentials. They are vital for all working-age households to enable people "to participate in society", both to access job opportunities and to get discounts on services, and everyone should be able to afford them.
This trend is only likely to increase as more, and more vital, services are delivered solely online, or provided offline in a way that penalises users through higher cost or lower quality. Already some of the best deals in areas like shopping, banking and insurance are only available online, and it is likely that online delivery of public services will also be on the agenda - moving transactions online has the potential to deliver considerable cost savings for a cash-strapped government.
Look in a bit more detail at those who are not online though and the picture is more complicated. Financial barriers are rarely the only - or indeed the main - reason people don't get the internet at home. Many fail to see how the benefits of the internet would make a difference to their lives. Even those who do are likely to need considerable support to get online and get the most from the internet, including help to choose and set up equipment, learn how to use the internet and possibly also a computer, and to keep themselves safe once they are online.
We have recently published a consumer framework for digital participation, supported by considerable consumer research, which brings together all the different things people need. We hope this will be a useful resource for all of those who agree, as we do, with the findings of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation research and want everyone to have access to the benefits the internet can bring.
A couple of weeks ago Anna, the Panel Chair, and I visited Scotland, meeting with a range of people working on broadband, next generation access and digital participation. This included the Ofcom Advisory Committee for Scotland, Scottish Government officials, the Deputy Director of the Scotland Office - the official responsible for non-devolved matters in Scotland - and the Scottish Parliament's Cross Party Digital Participation Group. There is lots of interesting and exciting activity going on. We shared the Panel's research on digital participation and the consumer principles developed by the Panel to guide the implementation of the Universal Service Commitment.
Since then, the coalition government have announced that Martha Lane Fox will be the new ‘UK Digital Champion'. Her role is similar to the one she played under the previous government, and will include advising and challenging the Government, the wider public sector and industry on making faster progress on getting more people and more services online. A new development is that Martha will now sit on the Efficiency Board, co-chaired by Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, and which oversees the Government's Efficiency and Reform programme.
Martha's role will be particularly challenging in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where responsibility for delivery of many public services is devolved. As well as influencing government in Westminster she will also need to work closely with the devolved governments who will be key to getting users in Scotland, and the other nations, online and delivering the kinds of online services that the UK's devolved citizens need and will value.
It has been almost three months now since the Government's Digital Britain report was published, and everyone interested in this area is still mulling over the implications of the report, with a prime focus on its internet ambitions. The Panel has published its response to the report today and you can read it on our website at: http://www.communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk/Response%20to%20Digital%20Britain%20final%20report.pdf
The report could be the kick-of for a programme of work that delivers real benefits to consumers. Many people across the UK do not have the same fast, reliable broadband that others have access to and strong hopes have been raised that this situation will be remedied with suitable investment in infrastructure.
However, getting people online is about much more than delivering a reliable 2Mb/s internet connection. There are people who have never been online before, and who would welcome the opportunity to give it a go and learn how to use the internet in a safe environment. Others are reluctant to try accessing the internet out of fear for fraud, viruses and spam. Their needs should be catered for under the Digital Britain umbrella as well.
Recent discussions I have had with organisations delivering internet opportunities to a range of consumers on the ground have shown just how important the first impression for newcomers to the internet is, and how diverse the training needs of different people can be. I have heard how many older people prefer training that is delivered in a social, group setting by a well-know trusted organisation, where someone else has worried about which anti-virus protection to put in place and there is constant hands-on advice available as they go along. I have learned how blind learners of access technology, such as screen readers and people with autism, prefer one-to-one specialist training that works at their individual pace. Plus, people go online and expect to find websites that are well-designed, easy to use, accessible and in plain English and are put off if they are not. Disabled people who can not use a mouse expect specialist advice in training settings on the best alternative technology for them. And younger people might be more willing to learn through trial and error and will generally be less worried about ‘breaking the computer' when they are learning how to use it.
One message has come through loud and clear through all these conversations: if their expectations and training needs are not adequately met, newcomers to the internet will give up on the technology. Especially for people who have to make an extra effort to learn how to use computers and the web, there has to be a significant reward at the end: the internet has to make one of their personally important life areas, whether that is staying in touch, shopping, entertainment, finding information or using government services better, quicker or easier. Together with delivering the infrastructure and the training required, this is no small but a very worthwhile challenge for Government, industry and a whole host of organisations working at local level around the country.
I was interested to see in the media yesterday that the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has been expressing concern that patchy availability of sufficient bandwith broadband is damaging the ability of rural businesses to compete with their urban counterparts. A spokesman suggested that it was not too dramatic to state that ‘the life of rural Britain will be snuffed out if by 2020 fibre optic technology is only available to our cities and towns'.
While fibre optic may not be the only answer, the importance of making broadband available throughout the UK has been consistently stressed by the Panel. Our recent research report Not online, not included showed that consumers believe it will soon be essential for everyone to have broadband at home, wherever they live. For businesses, broadband of sufficient speed is simply indispensible.
Last week, we published our response to Ofcom's consultation on access and inclusion. We welcome Ofcom's intention to bring together all the issues that have a bearing on access and inclusion under a single overarching project.
On Broadband availability, we had already welcomed the Government's universal broadband commitment. But, as ever, the key test is delivery and whether people everywhere in the UK really will be able to have access to - and the skills to use - online services at a speed that allows them to do what they want, when they want.
‘Not spots', of course, is not just a broadband issue. Despite claims of virtually universal mobile coverage, there are still plenty of people - including me - who have difficulty getting a signal at home, never mind when they are on the move. On the Panel, we think there is an unacceptable gap between official data and the reality experienced by consumers. We've asked Ofcom to give this issue greater priority and are carrying out our own research to better understand consumers' experience in this area.
We will keep you posted.
On Monday I went to Nesta's Reboot Britain Conference. It was a very lively event with some interesting sessions on the role ICT can play in reforming public services. Jonty Olif-Cooper, who runs the Progressive Conservatism project at Demos, talked about the need for greater efficiency and innovation in public services to respond to the pressures of demographic change, climate change and the credit crunch. He suggested that technology can help by: improving the existing mechanisms for public service reform (choice, voice etc); increasing local control over services by devolving power; facilitating collective action; and helping to share knowledge about performance and best practice. He didn't address how this would tackle the class divide in access to high quality services, especially given that the middle classes not only have the education, skills and confidence to be able to utilise these opportunities, but are also much more likely to have access to the technology.
Antonio Gould and Matt Marsh ran an interesting session on the importance of involving users when thinking about the purpose and design of a service, not just in the usability testing phase: an interesting point for those thinking about Digital Britain's proposal to move public services online.
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive at the RS, gave his view on why the internet has so far failed to transform civic society. He argued that the public debate confuses the two different roles of government: an organisation that delivers services and a body that makes decisions. In the former it is broadly reasonable, at least to a degree, for users to have consumer expectations. In the latter a consumerist approach is highly problematic, as people tend to have conflicting aspirations and make impossible demands: for instance wanting Swedish style public services on American style taxes. He argued that the challenge is to find a way to create a space that is not just a vehicle for more effectively voicing demands, but which gets people think about those demands in the context of both their own and other people's competing priorities.
Martha Lane Fox also spoke at the event. She stressed how important it was that we focus on those people who were being left behind, not just in access to technology but in other areas too. She listed some of the benefits that digital participation could bring, such as increased earning potential, increased confidence etc. She argued that we understand these people well now, and that it is time to take action: we look forward to working with her and the Task Force to determine what form that action will take.
Last week I attended Intellect's Consumer Electronics Conference themed Driving Digital Value. The conference is an annual event where manufacturers, retailers, broadcasters, government and media stakeholders attend to listen about the challenges and opportunities companies see ahead of them.
Whilst much of it was about new products and business plans a couple speakers did talk specifically about the consumer experience in the Digital World and it wasn't based on the experience of digital natives but of the general populace. So what did they say?
Helen Keppel-Compton is the Head of Buying of Consumer Electronics at John Lewis and said that the consumer electronics market is the most challenging product area she has worked in in her twenty year career. And provided the following example: starting in 1984 when consumers purchased Bruce Springsteen's ‘Born in the USA' on vinyl and took us through the cassette and CD purchasing era to the rise of the music download market and ownership of ipods in 2005. During this time Helen pointed out that people continued to purchase jeans without any problems, but technology changed rapidly without people instinctively understand it.
To overcome consumer confusion Helen thinks that electronic products need to do be simplified, and not be electronic Swiss Army knives. If a person is purchasing a digital camera it should be a digital camera and not have a video editing suite incorporated as well. Her ideal piece of equipment would be one remote that had one button, which did everything - perhaps a little wishful?
Dave Tansley, a Partner at Deloitte, talked about how consumers are becoming more demanding and fragmented in their views and that whilst consumers will be price conscious they will also be value driven, i.e. does the product meet their green expectations? And whilst the benefits consumers get from the digital market are: choice, immediacy, convenience and personalisation. The challenges consumers face are choice (too much), immediacy (slooooow downloads), convenience (services are inaccessible for some users) and personalisation (who owns your personal information?).
All of this points to the need for industry to make their products simple to use and for consumers to be empowered so that they can get the full benefits of using them. This reflects much of what the Panel has been saying in the current debate about how to expand digital participation.
I have just posted the below to the http://digitalengagement.org/ blog. For those who are interested in issues around digital inclusion it is a great way to engage with people and organisations as we work towards solutions that close the digital divide.
I think the digital world is fantastic and so do all you, but maybe some of those who don't agree have right on their side, at least from where they sit; perhaps the services that some people want are simply not available. Stop for a minute to think about the characteristics of those groups of people who are most likely not to be on-line: older people, people with a disability and people on low incomes, for example. These groups of people are likely to be particularly heavy users of public services. Stop for another minute and think about the quality of public services that are available on-line and you might just have found the key to some digital exclusion.
There is a mass of public service information on-line, but very few truly interactive public services. the sort of services that offer us something new, different and better than public service offerings off-line. It has proved particularly difficult to get public service providers to invest in digital services that could really make a difference. In conversations with providers, it is never long before the chicken and egg problem crops up - we will invest in the services when the network is there to support them and make them available to all citizens and consumers.
Well now is that time. Recent Communications Consumer Panel research shows that people are anticipating a time, not very far away, when telemedicine and other such digital services will be making their lives better. These people will be sorely disappointed unless public service providers start to play catch up pretty quickly. So I think, we should make sure that a significant plank of our digital action going forward is focussed on bringing about the kind of change that will be required at the heart of public service delivery at local and importantly, national levels.
There is no question that more people would go on-line if only they knew how good the digital world can be, if they had the skills and if the costs were manageable. But maybe, the fact that some people don't want to go on line is quite rational and it will take digital public services to persuade them it is worth the effort.
Digital Britain, in the form of Lord Carter, came to Edinburgh recently for a round-table discussion on the challenges and opportunities for Scotland under the transition to a digital future. The event was attended by around 50 stakeholders from industry, broadcasting, academia and the consumer sector, and ably chaired by the broadcaster, Lesley Riddoch.
The discussion, which centred on Digital Britain’s Interim report, was (loosely) divided into 3 sections – Networks, Content, and Citizens and Media Literacy – the last one being rather shoehorned in at the end, although both Media Lit and consumer issues were interwoven through the whole discussion.
Key areas of interest for the Panel include the proposed 2MB USO - 'how universal is ‘universal’? Lord Carter described the USO ambition as 2MB per sec per household and, yes, this includes rural areas. Funding would be drawn from the Industrial Activism Fund and the DSO Help Scheme mechanism. The intention, we were told, is to pump prime for ‘next generation’ across the country.
The policy driver for this is that once broadband is in universal use, government and local authorities could ‘switch off the analogue delivery of public services’ and move many aspects of delivery on line, resulting in massive savings and greater convenience for service users. Take up on this scale by consumers will need to be driven by both fascinating content and the placing of essential services on line and the government is aware that it is moving ahead of demand in this respect. Some areas will present greater problems than others – for example, Glasgow has the lowest broadband take up rate in Britain and in some deprived parts of the city broadband connection is as low as 17%.
This aspect of Digital Britain has led to a heightened interest in media literacy and a separate media literacy report is running parallel to the Digital Britain consultation. In Scotland, the network of media literacy practitioners (chaired by Ofcom Scotland) will be revising its strategy in line with the recommendations of this report.
Is Lord Carter happy with the level of consumer input to the Digital Britain process so far? Consumer input is increasing with more between January and April than in the previous 3 months and a programme of events between now and the summer. Consumer groups, he said, have been very engaged with the process and the standard of their submissions very high.
The Panel remains on the case, and will be presenting the next phase of its specially commissioned research to Digital Britain shortly. The research seeks to inject a consumer perspective into Digital Britain’s thinking about broadband as an essential and universal service - as discussed by my colleague, Lou Bolch, in the Blog on 24th April below.
Broadband Not-Spots & Water Supplies in Rural Wales
The Communications Consumer Panel has commissioned deliberative research into consumers' and citizens' views on the importance of access to broadband facilities. I was extremely interested in this question as it relates to communities in rural Wales, where broadband connections are unreliable, speeds are poor, and in places non-existent. I asked if I could sit in one of the research sessions, and went to one held in Carmarthen in South-West Wales, where some highly articulate and well-informed active people had been assembled from near a small village called Pumpsaint (Welsh for 5 saints). This area has no broadband, and it also has little or no mobile coverage, very poor terrestrial TV coverage, and no digital radio.
The first surprise was that nearly everyone in the group was very conscious indeed of what they were missing out on by not having broadband - I had vaguely expected that ignorance might be bliss - but it was very clear that this was wrong - they were able to rattle off a very long list off the many servces and applications that broadband would open up for them. My heart went out to the gentleman who is a tax consultant who has to send in on-line tax returns for his clients. This is a completely impossible exercise on a rather unreliable dial-up link which always seemed to time-out at the critical moment, so he has to prepare them all on paper and then go once a week into the Library in Carmarthen (about 15 miles) to complete them on-line.
When asked to say which applications/services were most important to them, the group found it hard to single out any single application as being more valuable than another - they understood that access was the key, and that they definitely wanted the whole package, from e-mailing family photographs to renewing their road tax discs. They regarded it as having a potentially profound effect on their quality of life. They described using dial-up as "confidence-sapping" - a real inhibitor for older people and those not used to using computers.
There was a huge sense of injustice and inequity throughout the group that they couldn't join in with modern life through lack of what, they felt, should be a universally available facility.
In terms of how important broadband is relative to other utilities, they were unanimous in putting it ahead of mobile coverage, gas (they don't have that anyway), and even terrestrial TV. Some even put it ahead of mains water! (This shocked the researcher, until they pointed out that many of them have their own springs). One or two people volunteered the information that if broadband didn't come soon, they would even feel obliged to abandon the rural idyll and move house. And given the beauty of that area - that would be a real wrench.
A final thought: hearing them talk about the trials and frustrations of dial-up brought back memories of not so long ago when all most of us had was dial-up, and the explosion in applications over the last few years means that we feel we couldn't survive if we had to go back to 28.8 kbps or whatever we had. So will the 2Mbps envisaged in Digtal Britain's programme be seen as adequate by 2012? Personally I doubt it.
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On 26 March I attended a roundtable discussion hosted by the BBC Trust unit on the accessibility and usability of Project Canvas. Other attendees included representatives from disability organisations and a colleague from Ofcom's Advisory Committee on Older and Disabled People.
The BBC Executive has asked the Trust for permission to develop a joint venture to promote a standards based open environment for internet connected television devices - Project Canvas.
If approved by the BBC Trust, Canvas would enable consumers to view a range of subscription free content on their TV sets, including on-demand television services and other internet-based content (such as the BBC iPlayer) from public service broadcasters. It would allow access to the digital channels available via Freeview or Freesat but could also allow access to internet content from Directgov, NHS Direct and other sites. It is not envisaged that Canvas would allow full internet browser capability or the ability to use email.
Viewers would need a set top box or other device which would include the Canvas standard to allow access to online content.
These devices are also expected to include local storage, eg a personal video recorder, an Ethernet port for internet connection and an electronic programme guide (EPG). Set top boxes are expected to retail at between £100-200.
Viewers would also need a suitable broadband package.
The discussion focussed on issues that need to be considered if people with a disability are going to be able to take full advantage of the Canvas proposition, including where required the ability to make use of access services like audio description and subtitling; the importance of a ‘design for all' approach to Canvas from the outset; issues for people with a learning disability; and the cost implications for consumers.
The current Canvas consultation closes on 17 April - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/open_consultations/canvas.html
There will be a further consultation on the Trust's emerging conclusion, opening on 8 June and closing on 22 June. The Trust will publish a final decision on 24 July.
The Panel will be watching developments with interest.
On Friday, March 6th, I attended the Inclusive Digital Economy Network Event. The network comprises of a large group of researchers working to identify and address the challenges of older and disabled people within the Digital Economy. Their website presentations from the day can be found here: http://www.iden.org.uk/.
It is clear there is a lot of very good research being undertaken in the UK on older people and people with disabilities. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) gave a presentation on it plans for their £120m research fund (out of an annual budget of £740m) to look at the digital economy and next-generation healthcare. Their website can be found here: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/default.htm . One take-away from the day is we need to find a way to ensure that all the research carried out by these organisations is utilised by policy makers.
The keynote speech was delivered by Wayne David MP, Deputy Minister for Digital Inclusion, who talked about the Governments Digital Inclusion Action Plan and its priorities. The plan can be found here: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/deliveringdigitalinclusion
and our response to the plan here: http://www.communicationsconsumerpanel.org.uk/smartweb/digital-inclusion/digital-inclusion-action-plan
The Minister also talked about the importance of assistive living and usability of equipment. He pointed out that 11.3 million people in the UK are of pensionable age and this number is only going to rise. Yet people's needs and wants are not being thought about by designers and manufacturers. Some stark research findings from the day revealed that for people offered assistive technology - 56% quickly abandon it; 15% never use it and overall 90% of assistive technology is discarded within two years. Clearly some scope for greater used involvement in design!
But there are other issues that need to be addressed to help people engage with technology. One example is people's learning strategies. An excellent presentation by Professor Andrew Monk from the University of York revealed that depending on which cohort you belong to impacts on how you learn about new products or services - if pre 1985 when Windows and Apple were launched you are likely to learn by rote or using the instruction manual, post 1985 you are likely to learn by exploration and experimentation - this fact has implications on how services and technologies should be designed for the mainstream.
We watched a short film, Relatively PC, where two actors played Jack and Maureen, who are older consumers trying to grapple with modern technology. After watching the film we ‘met' Jack and Maureen as part of a Q&A session on their experiences. They had really worked on their character profile and were able to bring the barriers and enablers to new technology to life in a fun, imaginative, and light-hearted way.
Overall, whilst much of the research centred on usability and assistive technology the issues they touched on have much wider implications and ones the Panel is working to help resolve; just some of these are: take-up of the internet; media literacy; and consumer empowerment.
What minimum level of speed and reliability do people have the right to expect from a universally available broadband? That is one on the questions that the Communications Consumer Panel discussed in preparing its response to the Government's ‘Digital Inclusion Action Plan'. Clearly the current requirement on BT and KCom to provide dial up internet access as part of their Universal Service Obligation is no longer adequate in a world where web sites are being designed on the assumption that the user has much higher speed...but how much higher?
We will be undertaking research with consumers to determine the services and applications that they now regard as essential to live their lives to the full and to look at some of the new services for citizens that a universally available broadband would open up. We don't want to get into a technology argument about how the service should be provided or even, at this stage, about who should pay. But we would like to hear people's comments about the services and applications that they believe they need to lead full lives.
The Panel were very encouraged by the momentum that seems to be growing behind the Action Plan, and the related Digital Britain initiative. There is a growing number of examples from around the world about how a wider availability of broadband can lead to step changes in the way public services are delivered. We want to see greater pace and innovation in the UK from central, local and devolved governments.
But new services will only be possible if most people have access to broadband; and that is as much about the take up of broadband as it is about availability. There are some great examples listed in the draft Digital Inclusion Action Plan of local or special interest groups getting together to spread understanding of the benefits of the services already available. We have seen others in our discussions with consumer groups and this has convinced us that strong support for the ‘Home Access Initiative', mentoring and community and other outreach programmes is a vital part of increasing understanding and participation.
We would welcome views on essential services, how to increase take up and the barriers that need to be overcome.
This week I attended a meeting of the Scottish Consumer Group Chairs, hosted by Consumer Focus Scotland, and the discussion included several issues relating to consumers and the recession.
Concern was expressed that, in an economic downturn, policy makers will put the needs of business and enterprise ahead of those of consumers and seek to reduce the regulatory burden on struggling companies. The fear is that this may result in some of the less reputable companies increasing their activity and what is needed is ‘intelligent' regulation rather than less regulation.
There were also worries that, as the retail and financial sectors are being hit hard at the moment, there will be a disproportionate impact on female workers and single mothers and consequently on child poverty.
Much of the advice and help for consumers is going on line, and the internet is likely to become even more important as consumers seek information to keep themselves going both socially and economically through the recession. It will be invaluable for consumers seeking, for example, financial advice, job opportunities or for understanding benefits entitlement as well as providing information on where the lowest prices can be obtained or what free leisure and entertainment facilitates exist in a particular area. It is essential that internet and broadband services are not regarded as disposable in hard times - or if needs must, that internet facilities provided by local authorities and job centres are geared up for increased demand and usage.