Briefings and responses

We want every resident to have a good quality of life and to aspire to improve their circumstances regardless of their background or where they live.

A Westminster Hall Debate on the Implementation of the Shared Rural Network

Councils want to go further to tackle regional inequalities in broadband infrastructure and accelerate the roll out in hard-to-reach communities. Local authority digital champions act as a central point of contact, helping to extend gigabit-capable broadband across the country as quickly as possible. We are therefore calling on Government to fully fund a digital champion in every local authority.

Upgrading, replacing and reconnecting these telecare devices, just one element of the PSTN switchover, to the digital network will be extremely costly. GLA Economics estimates the upgrade costs to be £31 million for London boroughs and impacting over 63,000 users.

Central government should work in partnership with local government to co-design future digital inclusion policy to ensure communities are not at risk of being left behind, building on the recommendations from the LGA’s recent digital exclusion report.