Digital capability means the skills and mindset needed by people and organisations to work well in a digital-first world.
- For individuals, it's about being able to use digital services and work in today's digital society.
- For organisations, it's about creating a work culture and setup that encourages digital practices.
- For the community, it's about helping people improve their digital skills and access to technology.
Individual Digital Skills
Digital skills vary for each person based on their job, interests, and life situation. We're checking our staff's skills in these areas:
- Basic computer use and efficiency
- Smart use of information and media
- Digital problem-solving and innovation
- Online communication and teamwork
- Continuous digital learning
- Managing online identity and wellbeing
After this check, we'll be offering lots of training opportunities to help staff improve their digital skills and confidence.
Organisational Digital Ability
For our digital experts, we'll create groups to share knowledge and best practice, we’ll standardise job roles to allow staff to have a career pathway across the whole system and we’ll adopt a set of common technical standards across all partners.
For all staff, we'll build an inquisitive and innovative culture. We'll use shared digital tools for better teamwork, we’ll publish case studies and good practices online and we’ll work together to solve problems, sharing resources to achieve quick, effective technical solutions.
Community Digital Skills
The IPSOS 2019 Consumer Digital Index study showed:
- 22% of UK people lack basic digital skills for daily life.
- By 2030, 8% of people might still struggle with digital skills.
- People with disabilities are 35% less likely to have essential digital skills.
The main challenges for digitally excluded people are:
Digital skills: Not knowing how to use computers, smartphones, or the internet, often due to lack of knowledge or access.
Internet access: Not having reliable internet through broadband, Wi-Fi, or mobile data.
Usability: Digital services that aren't easy to use, especially for people with additional needs.
We're working to solve these issues through digital inclusion efforts. We'll soon share information about current and future projects to help improve digital access for everyone.