Donate-a-phone schemes and tech workshops in line for £9.5m Government backing
According to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the money will help connect the 1.6 million people who live entirely offline with the online world.
'It is unacceptable that in 2025, millions of people across the UK simply can't access the vast opportunities that technology and the online world offers,' telecoms minister Sir Chris Bryant said, adding that 'digital inclusion is an essential for modern life and work, not just something that's nice to have'.
Sir Chris also said: 'Making technology widely accessible could be the thing that means a sick patient can speak to a GP remotely, or that helps a young person successfully apply for a job.
'Through this funding we're moving further to empower local leaders and groups nationwide, who are already working tirelessly to get their communities connected and change countless lives for the better.'
The Government launched its Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund as part of the Digital Inclusion Action Plan, which also includes an ambition to pilot a device donation scheme, so re-purposed Whitehall laptops will go to people who need them.
Older and disabled people, low-income households and jobseekers are among the groups more likely to be digitally excluded, according to the plan.
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The Guardian
2 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Government is a living organism, not a machine
Martin Kettle is right to call for leaders who can operate the machinery of government (Opinion, 7 August). However, it should be made clear that the machinery of government – in which I work as a senior civil servant – is not a 'machine', as many current leaders assume. In his 2024 book On Leadership, Tony Blair says leaders often make the mistake of believing that the machinery of government is 'like an instrument in their hands' that they can learn how to use. It is not an instrument, he points out, but 'a living organism [with] a mind and a temperament'. This common misunderstanding of the nature of the system underpins the government's consistent inability to deliver. Anne Owers' independent prison capacity review is just the latest example. Machines can be mastered with manuals, precise plans and predictable cause-and-effect levers, but living organisms behave differently. As anyone who has raised a toddler or a teenager can attest: predictability and cause-and-effect do not apply. Linear approaches suitable for the 'machine', such as plans and targets, are ineffective, serving only to increase bureaucracy. Meanwhile, all remains quiet on the delivery front. Owers' review evidences this, describing the prisons-capacity response as bureaucratic and repetitive, with too much discussion and too little action. Treating the machinery of government like a complex organism, rather than a machine, is the only way it will be effectively deployed. The UK government's own guidance on 'systems thinking for civil servants', as well as research by the Institute for Government, acknowledges this, with the latter noting that the machinery of government cannot be 'controlled through plans and 'levers''. Yet time and again, leaders fall back on the same familiar levers, expecting different results. They deploy tools suitable for the 'machine', including endless plans and committees. Bureaucracy begets bureaucracy, while delivery is missing in action. Breaking this cycle will remain unsuccessful for as long as leaders continue to treat government as a 'machine'.Name and address supplied Martin Kettle correctly identifies the stranglehold that Treasury orthodoxy has on government, but does not go far enough in identifying the source. Supply-side theory claims that growth comes when entrepreneurs are given incentives such as tax breaks or subsidies. Private businesses will employ people and the wealth they create, the taxes they pay, will allow government to improve public services. Forty years of failure has not dented faith in this flawed doctrine. Perhaps because those who administer the policies do not suffer the effects. Instead of giving money to rich businessmen, much of which finds its way into tax havens, why not try using it productively through existing channels? Public spending is not a dirty word. Creating a safe, healthy and prosperous society is the essence of government. Local authorities, especially in poor areas, are desperate for funds to keep their communities in a half-decent state: give them money to rebuild and repair, perhaps with encouragement to source locally. Bring in a local income tax instead of rates. Reverse the increase in employer's national insurance contributions, which is a tax on jobs. When demand increases, supply will follow. In this way the economy will grow organically, sustainably and all around the DaviesNewton-le-Willows, Merseyside Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Western Telegraph
10 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Sturgeon's ‘Stalinist' approach disastrous for SNP, claims Joanna Cherry
Speaking at an on-stage conversation with Matt Forde on Wednesday, the lawyer said Ms Sturgeon's top-down approach lay behind the party failing to recognise concerns around gender self-identification, and its failure to achieve Scottish independence post-Brexit. She said that unlike her predecessor Alex Salmond, Ms Sturgeon had shut down debate within the party on strategy and policy discussions, and that 'it was her way or the highway', and dissenters were viewed with 'deep suspicion'. The former Edinburgh South West MP added that she had never been friends with Ms Sturgeon, but that their differences were political rather than personal. 'I've never been close to her. This is not a personality clash. This is a clash based on the way that we do politics,' she said. 'I believe in open debates and discussion. And I don't think she does. I think she was Stalinist in the way in which she ran the party and the country.' She also criticised Ms Sturgeon's strategy for securing a Scottish independence in the post-Brexit period, when she said she 'repeatedly' pursued a mandate for a second referendum from the UK Government without considering a plan B. 'The ideal thing would have been to get a second referendum, but it was unwise to close down other options, and we needed to discuss other options,' Ms Cherry said. 'She never wanted to discuss a plan B, and she never wanted to discuss the possibility of treating an election as a de facto referendum. 'And when she eventually decided to do that, it was only because she'd run out of options, and she did it without any debate or discussion.' She added: 'The reason that I feel that her strategy failed and was so wrong was it was very narrow, and she repeatedly banged her head off the brick wall of the British Government's refusal to grant a section 30 order, rather than having a multi-faceted strategy to put pressure on them to do so, whilst also having a back-up plan if they said no. 'A more skilled politician of the sort of person that Alex Salmond was would have had that kind of a plan, and she didn't have it.' Ms Cherry also described the independence referendum in 2014 as a 'flowering of ideas' that had come about from the 'grassroots up'. She said: 'I think Nicola and her husband, as chief executive of the party, set out to undermine that grassroots power because it scared them, and to make everything imposed in the top-down, and that has had disastrous results for the SNP and for the independence movement.' Ms Cherry also said it was 'irritating' that in her recent autobiography Ms Sturgeon conceded some of the problems with gender self-identification were valid, given, she said, there had been multiple attempts to get her to 'press pause' on the policy at the time. These included, she said, an open letter in the Scotsman newspaper in 2019 by herself and 'quite a few other SNP MPs, MSPs and councillors', and separate calls from herself for a citizens' assembly to examine the issue. She said of Ms Sturgeon's response: 'Not only did she close her ears to them, she demonised those of us who raised concerns. 'She said first of all that our concerns weren't valid. And then she actually compared us to the far-right, said we're misogynist, racist, homophobes.' Joanna Cherry was first elected to the UK Parliament in 2015, and was her party's spokesperson for justice and home affairs until 2021. She lost her seat to Labour in the 2024 general election. The Scottish Government and the SNP have been asked for comment.
The National
12 minutes ago
- The National
Expert debunks everything you've been told about Scottish 'deficit'
Here, you can watch the full video. The transcription is also written below. It's GERS day: The day in Scotland when the Government Expenditure and Revenue Statement for Scotland is published by the Scottish Government. Every year it's presented as the truth about Scotland's public finances, and in reality, it's a Completely Rubbish Approximation to the truth or it's CRAp, as I've always described it. The real position is this. The Scottish Government balances its books. Every single council in Scotland balances its books. Every public agency that is reflected in jurors balances its books. In other words, the truth is Scotland's public finances balance, by definition and by law. So where does the deficit that GERS reports come from? Well, it comes from the actions of the UK Government. It has to, because nobody else can create this deficit on behalf of Scotland because nobody else has the legal power to do so. And, therefore, if Scotland is running a deficit, we know who to blame. It's Westminster, and nobody at Holyrood is responsible. READ MORE: What is the GERS report and how is it calculated? Now let's just look at some of the detail behind that, because as usual, GERS is saying that Scotland is running a large public finance deficit; one that is larger than that in the rest of the UK. And that is because people in Scotland are said to be paying a little bit less tax than people elsewhere in the UK. And I deliberately emphasised the point, "a little bit less tax". In fact, if we take oil into account, they pay no less tax than other people in the UK. But if we take oil out of account, it's about £500 or so less than other people in the UK. So, the difference is insignificant, and that's amazing given that average incomes per head in Scotland are lower than in the rest of the UK. But let's look at the second part of this equation, and that is that the supposed spend on people in Scotland is £2670 per person more than it is on people in the rest of the UK. It's over £21,000 and it's around £18,000 per person in the rest of the UK; a figure, which you're probably going find pretty staggering because you're going try and work out how you get that much benefit. And the answer is, it is very hard to work out. But the point is that the deficit per person in the UK is £2200 per person, and it is claimed as a consequence of adjusting for these tax figures and for the extra spending for people in Scotland that the deficit per person in Scotland is over £4700 per person per year. And I'm going to put it to you that that is nothing to do with what is actually happening inside Scotland's public finances, for the reasons I've already explained. They balance. So what are the reasons for the deficit? First of all, as the GERS statement itself, rather pointedly says, expenditure on social provision and welfare in Scotland is higher than it is in the rest of the UK. And there's a little dig at the Scottish Government for that in this document. But in truth, that's not the reason. The truth is Scotland is poorer than the rest of the UK and has more social need than the rest of the UK, and also needs more support because of the environment of Scotland being different from the rest of the UK. It's colder for a start. And so, there are issues in Scotland that have to be addressed which Westminster is never going to care about, which are reflected in this report and which don't get adjusted for as a consequence. They are never going to be solved until Scotland is independent. But the rest of this deficit is created by Westminster because it is the only organisation that can create it because nobody in Scotland has the power to do so. And I'm saying that that is deliberate. Scotland is deliberately having costs dumped on it by Westminster in a way that is entirely unreasonable. It is claimed that Scotland has excess costs, in other words, in my opinion, and some of those are easy to identify. For example, Scotland is not buying new nuclear power stations in the south of England, and it would never need them because it has a power surplus. In fact, Scotland is underreporting its national income because companies in Scotland are being paid to not produce renewable energy. You couldn't make up a situation more bizarre than that, which is so biased in favour of England. And Scotland would never, if it was independent, waste the money that the UK does on defence so that Keir Starmer can continue to go around the world politically posturing as if the country is a world power when everybody knows it isn't. And nor would Scotland spend money on HS2, which is never going to come near the country. And nor would it pour subsidies into investment in the south-east of England, which is the absolutely standard norm in the UK Government accounts for which apparently Scotland has to pay. Independence could change all this. Scotland would have its own capital, which would boost its GDP. All profits earned in Scotland would be taxed in Scotland, and I very strongly suspect that is not the case at present. All interests paid in Scotland would be taxed in Scotland because it would have to be paid to Scottish banks, and I very strongly suspect that that is not being accounted for properly at present. And in addition. VAT paid in Scotland would definitely be collected in the country and once more, I'm not at all convinced that is happening right now. And Scotland could, if it was an independent country, crack down on the small company abuse that is now denying the revenue across the whole of the UK, tens of billions of pounds, and therefore costing Scotland a significant amount as well. And all of this could be done to change the way in which Scotland's accounting works. But Westminster isn't interested in doing that. So long as it can dump its costs on Scotland and Wales, and Northern England and Northern Ireland, then it doesn't care that it is making losses in those areas as a consequence of its accounting because it can blame them for being the burden on the rest of the UK. They keep wasteful projects alive on the basis of this while starving Scotland of funds to meet real needs. This is accounting abuse on a giant scale. READ MORE: We have to create an alternative to GERS to make the case for indy The figures that are used in GERS are flawed because the UK Government supplies what is, in my opinion, and I'm allowed to have this opinion, flawed apportionments of UK national data. And Scotland has no control over this. What it's charged for is a matter for the UK Government to decide and not for Scotland to decide. America sought independence for less reason than that. And these estimates would all change if independence was to be a reality. In fact, in fairness, GERS says that. There is no indication of what Scotland's finances would be like if it was independent from the extrapolation of the GERS statement. But if you listen to a Unionist, you would never believe that. They love GERS, they always have, and remember that it was created in 1992 precisely to prove that Scotland couldn't be an independent country, and more than 30 years on the Scottish Government, headed by the SNP for well over a decade now, is still producing this nonsense data and looks incredibly weak as a result for doing so. Year after year I have begged the SNP to change the methodology, to put forward a proposal as to how this can be properly accounted for, and to show, at least, the degree of expense which is reallocated which they would challenge, and that which is not. But it doesn't happen, and that's ridiculous. So, we end up with a situation where GERS is, as I've always described it, CRAp – a completely rubbish approximation to the truth. It's misleading. It's untruthful, and it's politically loaded against Scotland. It's time to scrap it, to replace it, and to show Scotland's real potential. Scotland can and must do better than this.
