ICT and Social Exclusion

 

 

EURIM Modernising Government Theme – Working Group on Social Exclusion.

Draft Scoping notes - December 2002

 

This note is the revised version of that used to set the scene for the scoping meeting held on 30th October. It is incorporates some key issues and insights identified as missing in the initial draft. It should be read in conjunction with the detailed minutes & references issued after the meeting held on the 30th.

 

This note & the minutes will be used at the meeting on 11th December to help us asses what the scope of our activity as a Eurim working group should be, and to help us set priorities for our way forward. It will also be used after the 11th to seek input from a much wider audience of interested parties.

 

CONTEXT.

 

1.       The ICT (Information & Communications Technologies) revolution is creating a diversity of capabilities whose exploitation is becoming pervasive in every corner of the modern economy – and increasingly fundamental to the operation of most facets of the modern economy.                                                        

2.       The impact of the exploitation of these technologies is so widespread that the question has to be asked as to their impact with regard to social exclusion.

a.       Their impact on the nature of work threatens the employability of a significant portion of those of our fellow citizens whose levels of illiteracy and/or innumeracy, or levels of cognitive & learning difficulties, or physical or audio & visual impairments puts them at risk.

b.       Their impact on most aspects of our living environment, on the services that we daily rely on, on our wider lives, leisure & cultural activities, widen their potential for impacting exclusion, positively and negatively: increasing ‘transactionalisation & automation’ of services (reducing the human element) and the ability to ‘identify the end user’ and focus, target services accordingly raises the risk of forms of discrimination that will further & adversely impact exclusion.

c.       In an ageing population, longer life can also be associated with increasing levels of cognitive, communicative & learning difficulties, and physical or audio & visual impairments – so the population ‘at risk’ will grow and with it the potential for an even wider exclusion.

d.       As the government moves to exploit the capabilities of ICT to modernise, streamline and underpin the wide range of interactions of the modern state with its citizens (ranging from those of the educational & social services to the fundamentals of democracy such as voting & political communication) those who lack the capacity for basic ‘cyber-literacy’ will similarly be at risk of marginalisation.                                         

3.       Equally, the same innovative forces that drive the ICT revolution may carry the potential to generate a diversity of capabilities ‘fit-for-purpose, fit-for-use’ for the illiterate, the innumerate, the learning & cognitively challenged, and the physically challenged & disabled in ways that could be strongly socially inclusive. With focus and determination, their risk of being at a permanent comparative disadvantage as the ICT revolution progresses could be tackled head on – creating with technology highly responsive, user friendly capabilities that work to increase social inclusion & coherence.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

A MAJOR CHALLENGE                                                                                                            

4.       There is a broad political agreement in the UK as to the size of the population ‘at risk’.  The Government's figure is 25 million.

a.       Government has already committed itself to ‘access for all who need it’ by 2005; this will coincide with the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act and overlay the Disability Discrimination Act.

b.       Some 80%+ of the Government’s total citizen transactions are reported as being with people in former Social Classes C2, D and E. These are almost precisely the same people who are not currently ICT connected. The issue of ensuring access is subject to major political commitment and scrutiny. However, the twin issues of ‘fit-for-purpose and fit for use’ access for those who are significantly challenged seems to gain less attention. The Government says that approximately 1/5 of its 25 million show some evidence of wanting to be connected but the other 4/5 do not (the ‘can’t, won’t, don’t  reality). Heavy investment in ICT in modernising of labour intensive areas such as benefits & health may in practice bring few counterbalancing savings on staff costs.

c.       In cutting unemployment Government strategy has largely revolved around improving basic skills in reading, writing, numeracy and in ICT processes. It is precisely those areas where the division of labour operates most effectively and in the processing of routine that machine processing will make most impact. This risks cutting yet more people with only the most basic skills to offer permanently out of the labour market.

d.       The Government has invested heavily in a network of ICT online centres with a wide geographic footprint, now well established operations but focused more on addressing learning & skills imperatives than other core issues in the social exclusion challenge.

e.       A wider policy learning of all recent governments has been the limitations of apparently well thought out top-down programmes to create effective ‘pull’ from the grass roots & local communities where the complex realities of social change, including the challenges of social exclusion, are tackled in practice.  

 

PROPOSAL

 

5.       The EURIM task is to inform the policy debate. On current evidence a wide range of groups in the UK are active on particular dimensions of the issues set out here. Examples range from work to improve the access of the disabled to employment in the ICT sector, to the exploitation of the capabilities of modern ICT to improve the life quality of particular groups of the disabled such as the blind and the deaf. The ICT industry is innovating technologies that have great potential – such as the use of voice input to computers. The Government is investing heavily in tackling the underlying agenda of social exclusion.

6.       The proposal is that EURIM provides the opportunity for a consultation with a ‘wide audience’ on the essence of the issues set out above, so as to create an informed debate and to allow the writing of an informed paper that gives substance to the policy issues at stake.

7.       The ‘wide audience’ will include the ICT industry and its associated trade associations & bodies of professionals (for example Intellect, the WCIT, the BCS etc.), the charitable and campaigning groups that work with the physically and the cognitively disabled etc., academic centres of focus on social exclusion (for example the Centre for Social Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE) and on the impacts of the ICT revolution, other pressure groups, charities and think-tanks as relevant, as well as the Social Exclusion unit in the Cabinet Office. Relevant international developments (including within the rest of Europe, and from North America) will be sought.

 

Richard Sykes (with acknowledgements to Henryk Trzebiatowski (Consignia) and Kevin Carey (HumanITy) for their collaboration and the wide ranging inputs that were developed at the launch meeting on the 30th October 2002. These are recorded in the minutes of that meeting, which are either attached or available on request from Emma Fryer: Emma.fryer@eurim.org ).

(6th December 2002)