Digital skills for all: joining forces to end exclusion
Navigating the digital skills landscape
According to the UK Digital Poverty Evidence Review, around 11 million people in the UK lack the digital skills necessary for everyday life — while a recent FutureDotNow report revealed that 60% of the UK workforce lack essential digital skills for work. Wow. Big numbers.
As we mark the first UK End Digital Poverty Day, the digital skills gap continues to persist in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world. Recent evidence suggests that navigating the digital skills landscape is becoming much more complex. Did you know that the number one essential digital task that people struggle with in the workplace is using productivity tools like Slack, Trello, and Microsoft Projects? (FutureDotNow 2023) Did you even know that this is now considered an “essential” skill in the workplace? (The basics, basically!) How’s that going for you?
The pandemic has exposed the fact that risks of digital exclusion affect everyone, including employees (be it colleagues, line managers, CEOs, trustees) needing to adapt to remote and hybrid work. This has required organisations from all sectors to take a more active role in supporting their employees, as well as their customers and beneficiaries, in adapting to this new reality.
Collaborating with the Digital Poverty Alliance
Following the pandemic, we have seen a more collaborative approach to responding to digital exclusion. The Digital Poverty Alliance is a new UK-wide partnership aimed at aligning different initiatives and fostering more collaboration to end digital poverty once and for all.
As part of our Catalyst work at CAST, we’ve benefited from being part of the Digital Poverty Alliance’s Community Board to help co-design a National Delivery Plan to tackle digital poverty nationally. We’re now part of their National Delivery Committee to help coordinate the collective response and contribute to ensuring that more people have essential digital skills across society, including in the workplace.
The UK Digital Poverty Evidence Review shows that charities play the role of trusted intermediaries for many people. Therefore, there is an important role that frontline charities can play in supporting their beneficiaries’ digital skills and confidence. The beneficial knock-on effect that upskilling can have on the wider community is considerable.
But a recent report by Catalyst on the digital needs of the social sector also highlighted the fact that many charities still struggle with basic (or essential) digital skills. Charities are also facing mounting pressure with the cost of living crisis and juggling new priorities. And they are less able to provide support for digital inclusion. Only 21% of those surveyed in the Charity Digital Skills Report 2022 mentioned that they were providing digital inclusion support, compared to 45% the previous year.
Empowering charities and communities through digital upskilling
With support from Catalyst, a core part of our work in this space has focused on co-designing a new digital skills framework for charities. The framework will help charity staff assess their digital skills and find resources to build skills and confidence. It draws from the government’s Essential Digital Skills Framework but also includes more advanced needs that have arisen from our programmes — skills like understanding your users and their needs, using data to make more informed decisions, and creating content that is accessible to your users. Therefore, it covers both essential and more advanced skills, and signposts to training and support resources pulled from trusted networks and providers. We’re now planning the next phase of development for the framework, and we will be sharing more about that journey in our next blog over on the CAST Medium Publication.
At CAST, upskilling has also been at the forefront of recent partnerships. Our partnership with Deloitte focuses on bridging the digital divide by improving the digital capability of charities through Deloitte Digital Connect. The 2022 / 23 Innovation and Digital Accelerator programme, which we ran in partnership with Sport England, also explored how to make access to sport more inclusive. We’re also currently supporting refugee charities with digital upskilling.
The same goes for helping others get online or gain more confidence. Charity staff and volunteers can train to be Digital Champions. It’s important that we develop a workforce that is more digitally confident so that knowledge and skills cascade down to our beneficiaries. The Charity Digital Skills Report 2023, another Catalyst initiative, is an excellent resource that outlines the skills gaps and trends.
Start upskilling now!
There’s no time like the present to start upskilling! We’ve picked ten top resources that can help you and your team get started now.
- Catalyst support library: 200+ free resources for charities using digital. Sign up for regular newsletters full of useful resources.
- Design Hops: free training to help charities redesign services for digital access run by CAST.
- CAST’s digital toolkit: free learning on user-centred design.
- Free digital skills training for the third sector on a range of topics run by Third Sector Lab
- Digital Candle: One free hour of expert digital advice for charities
- Deloitte Digital Connect Resource Hub: 100+ resources hand-picked for participants on the Deloitte programme — but made available to all. Email the Deloitte team if you’d like to receive information on the next cohort (call to apply is coming up in October).
- Learn My Way free learning for you to gain digital skills to stay safe and connected (provided by Good Things Foundation)
- 400+ how-to free tech guides provided by Digital Unite.
- Digital Champion Essentials training: for staff who want to become digital champions (run by Digital Unite).
- Skills Helpline for Beneficiaries: Citizens Online have a free phone digital skills helpline and other training resources.
If you’d like to help end digital poverty once and for all, find out how you can get involved in the Digital Poverty Alliance either by making a pledge, a donation or joining the community hub. Have a look at their directory of support and make sure to spread awareness! If you’d like to find out more about CAST and Catalyst initiatives, send me a message at david.scurr@wearecast.org.uk and let’s chat!
