The Economic Case for Digital Inclusion Cebr 2022

Further enhanced by the pandemic, digitalisation has not only become important in businesses today, but also within our culture and how we live. In this report by Criticaleye partner Capita (based on analysis by Cebr – Centre for Economics and Business Research), set out the economic case for investing in interventions to help digitally excluded people build their basic digital skills. While much has been achieved, there is a risk that momentum will be lost leading to further inequalities, particularly for older populations.
Key takeaways include:

• For every £1 invested in interventions to enable digitally excluded people to build their basic digital skills, a return of £9.48 is gained throughout the economy2, with a returned Net Present Value of £12.2 billion.
• UK Essential Digital Skills reports point to worrying findings that, for people aged 75 years and older, the number of people without the ‘Essential Digital Skill for Life’ grew by 5% from 2019 to 2020, and by 11% from 2019 to 2021 (Lloyds Banking Group 2021).
• The number of people without basic digital skills in the UK fell from 12.4 million at the end of 2019 to an estimated 10.6 million by the end of 2022; and without further external intervention in basic digital skills, 5.8 million people are likely to remain digitally excluded by the end of 2032.