Lord Carter’s much awaited Digital Britain report launched this week and attracted a predictably muted response from most sectors. Just about everyone agrees about the important role that digital tecnology has to play but with so many competing priorities, compromise was always going to be the order of the day.
Digital Britain: The Big Picture Approach
The one place where Digital Britain should be celebrated is in its attempt to address such a complex - but vitally important - topic at all.
The diversity of the issues covered is impressive: social inclusion, employment, infrastructure, IP, the media, social media, local ‘e-government’, ‘e-healthcare’ and anything else ‘e’ you can think of.
The point is that there is little point in discussing any of these issues in isolation as each impacts upon the other. An egovernment strategy that ignores the impact of social media, the changing media landscape or digital inclusion won’t go far enough.
Unfortunately this ad hoc approach has been the usual MO for many local government bodies. Local authorities might easily invest in foreward-thinking elearning strategies but fail to offer even the most basic social media access to help facilitate and promote them for example.
The problem would seem to be (and feel free to contradict this in the comments below) that there is no central digital strategy within local authorities or elsewhere in the public sector. Individual departments are left to make their own decisions in isolation and regardless of what other departments may be doing. Even the simple idea of shared resources, as championed by Learning Pool and others, takes some persuasion.
Is this issue structural, political, budgetary?
Support Your Local Digital Sheriff
Now that Lord Carter has laid down his suggestions, the local government sector (as well as everyone from the NHS to the fire service) needs to follow suit by developing or co-opting a central, inclusive plan …
… and then appoint someone to drive it forward and co-ordinate across departments - encouraging the continued sharing of best practice and a greater willingness to trial new ideas.
In short, if Britain as a whole has taken the first steps in developing the ‘big picture’, should local authorities not follow suit.
What do you think? Is your local authority doing this already? Please share your thoughts with your fellow readers in the comments below.
