Chamber and committees

When you mentioned the private sector, utility companies immediately came to mind—their digital services are almost impenetrable, so I can understand why people throw their hands up and decide to go off-grid.

Nevertheless, there is still the issue that, broadly, we do not know which people are not accessing digital services. We assume that that group includes older people, people who do not access services through choice and people who do not access services due to poverty or a lack of means. There could be other categories of people, including those who do not access digital services due to disabilities and all sorts of things. However, we do not know or even have an estimate of how big those populations are and there does not seem to be a plan to reach them.

I come back to the wider issue of the lack of progress on tackling digital exclusion. What has been the impact of the joint national strategy, “A Changing Nation: How Scotland will Thrive in a Digital World”, and the aim of ensuring that nobody was left behind? The digital participation charter is being measured. How is it being used to inform the refreshed strategy that you are talking about?

Broadband is only part of the issue.

How do you support people who choose not to adopt such services? Do they have no freedom of choice at all, and must they simply comply, as is the case with some of the services that councils and the Government offer?

Pre-Covid, I had a meeting with Ofcom, which helpfully produced some statistics on my constituency. The figures for the Midlothian part of my constituency were quite a shocker—at that time, 34 per cent of the adult population had no access to a smartphone or to the internet. I am sure that Covid drove huge changes in relation to that and I have not seen an up-to-date figure. Nevertheless, even if that figure has gone down by two thirds—I use that as a notional figure—it is still a significant issue.

There is an assumption that people are digitally excluded due to age or infirmity or whatever although, just from my point of view, I would want to hit back on that. However, what I am trying to find out is the extent to which we have an analysis of the different sectors and categories—or however you want to put it—of people who are digitally excluded. I have met a surprising number of people who do not want a smartphone, the internet or any of the social media contacts. That means that they are almost off-grid, and their ability to access services is fairly limited. You could say that that is by choice in their cases but, as you know, there are many other categories of people for whom that is not by choice. How do you analyse that? How do you get the breakdown of who cannot access digital services?

Eilidh McLaughlin, you talked about possibly having a consultation that would provide more detail on the different categories of people who do not have digital access—at least, that is how I interpreted what you said.

Given the importance of the changes to the colleges and, potentially, to their funding, did Audit Scotland look at the methodology that the SFC used to arrive at the conclusion that they represented the appropriate way forward?

An assessment must have been carried out, surely, to ensure that they were the appropriate steps to bring in and that they would have a positive impact down the line. Have you seen such assessments and evaluations? If so, do they seem reasonable? Will the new arrangements deliver?

Obviously, any reduction in learning is bound to have an impact on students and local employers—I cannot see how it would not.

I will move on to investment in the college estate. In your briefing paper for the committee, you state that the college infrastructure strategy delivery plan

“supports the development of an Infrastructure Investment Plan”,

which apparently was

“due in November 2024 but will now be later.”

Do we know how much later?