Gorbals Digital Inclusion

The Scottish Executive's digital inclusion strategy, “Connecting Scotland’s People” set a vision of a digitally inclusive Scotland where there would be more equal, effective and beneficial access for all people to the digital technologies and web facilities that benefit them in their day to day lives. The task in the Gorbals was for citizens to cross the digital divide. The divide was not related to a lack of telecommunications infrastructure, but to poverty, lack of awareness, and low skill level. The groups most affected by the digital divide are those which are already most excluded from society and this was the case in Gorbals, where approximately two thirds of all households had no one of working age in employment. Employment levels, health, educational attainment were all considerably below the Scottish average. The Glasgow ICT Household Survey, found that the Gorbals had poor ICT access and take up compared to Glasgow and most other Social Inclusion Partnership areas. For the Gorbals citizens to progress into employment and into better paid jobs a knowledge of ICT would be essential.

Policy Context

The Scottish Executive recognised the importance of ICTs to the inclusion agenda when in November 1999 the ‘Social Justice – a Scotland where everyone matters’ was produced. In it the Executive set a target of “accelerating access to the Internet for households in disadvantaged areas”. At the UK level, the Government’s Social Exclusion Unit establishment a policy action team (PAT 15) to look at the issues surrounding ICT in disadvantaged areas. Their report ‘Closing the Digital Divide’ (March 2000) concluded that there was a lack of availability and uptake of ICTs in the poorest neighbourhoods. Their findings were also relevant for the situation in Scotland where the ‘Digital Scotland’ taskforce report (June 2000) made 18 recommendations relating to digital inclusion. In 2001, the Scottish Executive launched its digital inclusion strategy, ‘Connecting Scotland’s People’ which set a vision of a digitally inclusive Scotland which had more equal, effective and beneficial access, for all people, to the digital technologies and web facilities that benefit them in their day to day lives. Against this background, and Glasgow City Council’s e-Government Strategy (2002) ‘Creating a 21st Century City’ which had a key strategic goal for social inclusion through technology, Scottish Enterprise Glasgow commissioned the ‘Digital Glasgow ICT Household Survey’ which provided a benchmark measure of individuals’ awareness of, access to, skills in, and support for ICT. The survey provided evidence that access to, use of and perception of ICT were lowest in the Gorbals area in comparison to other areas in the city.

Description of target users and groups

The population of the Gorbals consisted of 9,907, distributed amongst 4,827 households, located in the three neighbourhoods of Laurieston, Oatlands and Hutchesontown and was characterised by some of the worst indicators of poverty and multiple deprivation. Approximately two thirds of all households had no one of working age in employment, with health and educational attainment all considerably below the Scottish average

Description of the way to implement the initiative

Managed by Glasgow City Council Cultural and Leisure Services department (now Culture and Sport Glasgow) the £1.1 million project was the latest addition to a network of 35 Learndirect Scotland branded learning centres within Glasgow’s community-based libraries. The centre was developed in the context of REAL, the successful partnership of key learning agencies in Glasgow which aimed to create a “learning city” that worked to promote social inclusion and tackle high levels of unemployment and under-achievement. This partnership consisted of Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, Glasgow City Council Libraries Information and Learning, Glasgow Colleges Group, Learning and Teaching Scotland and the three Universities, Strathclyde University, Glasgow University and Glasgow Caledonian University. A project board was established to make strategic decisions and ensure partner agreement at the local and city level and community buy in on project design, content, operational and procurement issues. The learning centre was designed to meet local needs therefore community engagement in all stages of project design and implementation was essential. One of the methods used with the community, was to explore good and poor practice in design and operation of learning centres in Scotland.

Main results, benefits and impacts

The Learning Centre takes the traditional library concept onto a new level by providing a high quality range of services which meets the diverse needs of the local community. It has won prestigious national awards such as the Dynamic Place Awards for Community Development and a Best Practice Award for Widening Digital Inclusion, whilst also being been commended in other national awards such as the e-Well-being Award for Improving people’s lives and the environment through Information and Communications Technologies. In addition, some of the centre’s learners’ also received award recognition and appeared in the national press for their achievements in overcoming personal difficulties and barriers. The learning centre worked closely with local Equal Access Managers and employability and guidance providers to implement a managed system where people were actively identified for career/guidance advice, volunteering opportunities and help with literacy and numeracy skills. Individual case studies have demonstrated the impact that the centre has made to the lives of individuals in the community Within three years’ the learning centre had engaged over 8,000 local residents and provided tutor-led training to over 5,000 people, of which 85% had little or no ICT skills before coming to the centre. It has also supported nearly 60 local community organisations with ICT training and development. As a direct result of the centres success and as part of the wider network of branded learning centres, the learning centre has enjoyed a high degree of visibility with visitors from all over the world. It also featured in a case study of regeneration and social renewal as a part of the EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum June 2006. The opportunity to replicate the success of the Gorbals project has been realised, in the first instance, through the creation of a new dedicated learning team within Culture and Sport Glasgow libraries, which will build on the lessons learnt within the Gorbals and deliver a new service across the city of Glasgow.

Return on investment

Return on investment: Not applicable / Not available

Track record of sharing

Awards - Learndirect Scotland Best Practice Award for Widening Digital Inclusion - Winner - Dynamic Place Awards - Community Development 2005 - Winner - Public Library Building Awards - Heart of the Community - Highly Commended - COSLA – Advancing Community Well – Being 2005 - Bronze Award - Digital City Awards – Winner (Gorbals library learner) - Learn Direct Scotland Learner of the Year Award – Winner (Gorbals library learner) - Scottish Adult Learning Partnership – Winner (Gorbals library learner) - e-Well Being Award Commended 2007

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1- Sustainability The importance of future planning to ensure sustainability. Without this key element many interventions can simply serve to meet short term agendas without dealing with the long term needs of the disadvantaged communities. Lesson 2 – Relevance Be relevant to the target audience, larger organisational and/or partner objectives (if applicable) and local and national priorities. Lesson 3- Simplicity Keep it simple and focused Scope: Local (city or municipality)