This response supplements our response to the initial inquiry and the good practice example provided in the Interim Report.

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Wheatley Group Response to Royal Society of Edinburgh Consultation on

“Spreading the benefits of Digital Participation – an interim report for consultation”

General

The Wheatley Group currently comprises the Glasgow Housing Association, Cube Housing Association, West Lothian Housing Partnership and Loretto Housing - all registered social landlords as well as Lowther Homes (mid-and full- market rented properties) and Your Place, a factoring company. We own and manage 44,000 homes and factor 23,000 homes across Glasgow and central Scotland. We are the largest Registered Social Landlord in Scotland.

This response supplements our response to the initial inquiry and the good practice example provided in the Interim Report.

The Wheatley Group is a member of Digital Glasgow which unites Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Life, Wheatley Group, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and Jobs & Business Glasgow in partnership to support the development of Glasgow as a Digital city by 2017.

The Digital Glasgow Board is supported by a Reference Group and a number of workstreams (SMEs, Innovation, Participation, Training& Skills).

A key workstream is Digital Participation which is supported by a wide range of Glasgow partners including the Digital Glasgow Board partners and Scottish Government, Glasgow Kelvin College, Glasgow & West of Scotland Housing Forum, Princes Trust, SCVO, Citizens Advice Direct, Citizens Online, Department of Works & Pensions. This group advances digital participation amongst Glasgow’s most disconnected citizens – especially disabled, people living in social housing, elderly and unemployed.

Recommendation 1:

The Scottish Governmentmust recognise that every individual has an undeniable right to digitalinclusion and should assume overall accountability for ensuring it is available, and accessible to all.

The Wheatley Group supports the concept of a right to digital inclusion and are working with the Scottish Government to develop the technical feasibility of an affordable wifi

infrastructure model which will enable all citizens to access the internet, preferably in their own home.

The Scottish Governmentmust adopt an appropriate definition of digital poverty by which tomeasureand eradicate digital exclusion in Scotland.

>Digital poverty should be defined relative to the quality of services available tomost.

>This definition should be used by the Scottish Government in ongoing assessment and reportingon digital poverty in Scotland, alongside othermeasures of deprivation.

>The Scottish Governmentmust commit to eradicating digital poverty in Scotland.

The Wheatley Group recognises that many of our customers suffer from multiple forms of deprivation. Lack of digital access is only dimension of the picture. Affordability is only one of many issues to be resolved when encouraging our customers to develop digital

participation skills. Literacy and numeracy, fear of the on-line world and “its not for me” must

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also be addressed through engagement and training. We would be cautious of the use of

“digital poverty” to progress the digital agenda.

All public buildings and new buildsmust be equipped to provide a broadband internet connection.

>The Scottish Governmentmustmake the installation of ducting suitable for fibre a planning requirement of all public works and new build, as recommended in the Digital Scotlandreport (2010).

The Wheatley Group supports the installation of fibre into new build property as we have already changed our new build specification to include the requirement for a broadband / internet connection as an effective way of future proofing our buildings.

Local Authoritiesmust permit and facilitate wider public access to local public assets:

>IT suites and wifi connections in schools, colleges and universities, which currently lie idle formany hours each day, should be opened up for public access by the local community atdesignated times.

>Existing public access should be increased; for example, by extending library opening timesand increasing available access to computers and wifi in and around public buildings.

The Wheatley Group welcomes every opportunity to offer digital connectivity through local public assets as we already support 23 learning centres in Glasgow and are expanding the programme in our communities. The opening times are flexible to meet the needs of local people. We are reviewing where existing centres could be upgraded for wifi, particularly where there is high footfall and long opening times. All new learning centres will include wifi as standard. We continue to work the host organisations to provide access and tutor support that best meets the needs of users.

The Scottish Government must commit to ensuring open access to broadband networks for use by communities, housing associations and other providers, so that affordable internet accessis a possibility for all.

>The Scottish and UK Governmentsmust ensure, if necessary by legislation enforced by regulation, that wholesale access to Scotland’s core internet infrastructure is open to communities, housing associations and other providers.

>Social housing providers should develop and share new architectures and

businessmodelsfor the provision of affordable internet access across housing estates and tower blocks. TheWheatley Group has taken this approach in a recent pilot project in Glasgow Housing Associationproperties. Lessons learned fromthis project should informthe design of initiatives that can berolled out at scale.

The Wheatley Group, as referred to in the recommendation, is already undertaking research to develop lower cost models of delivery in its housing portfolio, supported by the Scottish Government. We would welcome any provision or funding to provide free and open access in all community facilities as a way to broader internet access. It would be helpful for government to work with the broadband supply market to develop low cost or discounted provision in community locations where learning centres are located to reduce the cost of

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provision and increase access. Access should be supported by opportunities for learning digital skills.

The importance of the network effect in building a critical mass of participation within a communitymust be recognised.

>Governments at all levels should ensure that subsidies are available to provide connectivity and loans of equipment to bring communities online.

>Enterprise agencies should provide similar support to local small businesses.

The Wheatley Group welcomes any initiatives which reduce the cost of broadband and the equipment either for the individual or for communities.

The Scottish Government should ensure that local efforts to address digital exclusion have national support.

>The Scottish Government should ensure that local groups addressing digital exclusion atcommunity levels have access to appropriate resources and support networks that enablethemto share and refine best practice.

>The Scottish Government should provide funding where needed, for the creation and supportof local centres addressing issues of digital exclusion.

The Wheatley Group supports this recommendation. We have active engagement from Scottish Government on the development of the Digital Glasgow approach. The Scottish Government are also supporting the development of digital skills for citizens and digital volunteers. Any support should give consideration to having a common digital

infrastructure. This ensures that the offer is consistent across all locations, offers a safe online service, is flexible so that users can log in at different locations and is scalable to add additional locations. Any support should consider how these criteria can be met on a large scale. An example is the Glasgow East Learning Network managed by Glasgow Kelvin College and supported by us.

The Scottish Government, local public service providers and third sector organisations should ensure the usability and accessibility of public sector websites,monitor user experience and collect and respond to user-feedback.

>The Scottish Government should consult with third sector organisations and users, to understandand respond to the needs of those who have accessibility issues or limited digital skills.

>All public sector organisations in Scotland should commit tomeeting these needs.

The Wheatley Group supports this recommendation. We are currently redesigning our web- based services to make them more user friendly. We are exploring the opportunity with Glasgow City Council to develop a group of local testers from a range of demographics to give feedback on new on-line public services before they are rolled out.

The Scottish Government should ensure that individuals have access to proportionate opportunitiesfor redress fromcompanies and individuals who abuse the internet.

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The Wheatley Group supports this recommendation. We advocate a “safe on-line” approach on all our web services including our presence on Facebook, twitter and our websites. We promote house rules so that customers can engage with us in a safe online environment.We have worked with Police Scotland’s Digital Crime Unit to ensure that our services to

customers promote a safe on-line approach and brief our customers on on-line safety as part of digital participation skills training.

The Scottish Government must ensure that the Scottish education system– pre-school, primary,secondary and tertiary – is equipped and able to provide education and training in digital literacy,software and systems technology, informatics and computer science. All are required by a digitalsociety.

>Digital literacy should be asmuch of a critical overarching element of the national

curriculumas are literacy and numeracy. Therefore, teachers of all subjects should be both using digitaltechnology and developing the digital skills of their students during their teaching.

>Scotland should have clearly defined outcomes for computer science, taught as a science ona par with other science subjects, both within broad general education and in the senior phasequalification courses. The Scottish Government should revisit this subject, in

consultationwith employers and universities, to ensure that the Scottish education systemprovides forthe needs of a digital society.

The Wheatley Group supports this recommendation. However we also recognise that many of the children who live in our homes do not have sufficient digital access at home to

supplement school access and learning using the internet. We support a Youth Access Programme which promotes the use of computers to do homework and to support the transition from school to college education. It is highly successful with 5,000 users registered.

The Scottish Government should ensure that Scottish primary and secondary teachers are able todemonstrate appropriate digital skills within their classes. Refresher courses in digital literacy andcomputer skills appropriate to the level and subject of instruction should bemade available forall teachers who are not confident using the internet or computers in their classes. The recentintroduction of ‘The Standard for Career-Long Professional Learning:

supporting the developmentof teacher professional learning’ by the General Teaching Council of Scotland, is a potential Mechanismto support this recommendation.

See response to Recommendation 10.

There should be specific provision to address the needs of adult learners who have never had theopportunity to develop digital literacy. This is an urgent prerequisite for digital inclusion.

>Providers of lifelong and community education should similarly ensure that they are equippedand skilled to support students in developing digital literacy and computer skills appropriateto the focus of study.

The Wheatley Group supports this recommendation. We recognise that many people who live in our homes do not have the skills to successfully use the internet. The learning centre programme supported by the Wheatley Group offers access to digital participation skills, ICT courses accreditation specifically to adult learners. The aim is to improve employability and to provide pathways to further education either in ICT or other destinations.

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Public and third sector initiatives providing online skills training should be coordinated under anoverarching digital skills initiative.

>The Scottish Government should provide a Scotland-wide registry of available training and support services for individuals, which can be used by public and voluntary sector support providers for referring individuals on to appropriate support.

>The Scottish Government should provide funding to allow local support groups and servicesto access and share resources and support.

Digital Glasgow supports a digital skills group, chaired by Wheatley Group, which has brought together Glasgow City Council Education, Scottish Government, Glasgow Life, Glasgow Kelvin College, Scottish Government, Department of Works & Pensions, Jobs &

Business Glasgow, Scottish Library Information Council (SLIC) to ensure that there is an overarching digital skills initiative in Glasgow and customers are assured of a consistent standard of course from basic digital skills to the European Computer Driving Licence. This will be used as a model for any new learning centres developed by Wheatley Group. All the courses have been benchmarked against the Scottish Qualifications Framework and all the partners regularly share knowledge and experience of delivering face-to-face and online training.

Organisations

Enterprise agenciesmust develop simple checklists of free online services and tools – such asbusiness listings, appointments diaries, blogs and calendars – and use these to help businessesto engage with the online world.

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Enterprise organisations should establish and support regular local ‘MeetUps’ for SMEs, where theycan explore potential benefits of digital engagement, share skills and knowledge, and where localservice providers canmeet with potential clients and establish their trust.

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Enterprise organisations should provide well targeted and well packaged initiatives aimed at providing support for SMEs tomake the small, entry-level steps necessary to establish a webpresence and other basic digital skills. Advice on costs and suitability of different web packages anddigitalmedia should be an integral part of such initiatives.

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Enterprise organisations and support agenciesmust rely primarily on peer-to-peer learning andsupported online learning tomatch the scale of the problem. National intervention should focuson providing appropriate onlinematerials and supportmechanisms that allow these to be refinedand adapted in response to feedback fromusers.

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Enterprise organisationsmust provide skills training for businesses to specify requirements andevaluate providers of digital services.

>Enterprise organisations in Scotland should establish initiatives for the recognition of skilledand reputable web developers, in order to support SMEs in identifying reliable and digitally-skilledproviders.

>As part of the support given to SMEs, enterprise organisations should provide guidelines onwriting appropriate specifications for digital contracts; for example, template briefs, examplebids, etc.Many web developers and IT companies are themselves SMEs and, in order to priceand produce appropriate work, theymust be assured that customers are able to articulate theirneeds adequately.

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