Latest ONS Statistics Out
- Details
- Created on Thursday, 17 November 2011
The Office for National Statistics’ third quarterly report on UK internet use came out yesterday and estimates that the number of adults never to have used the internet has fallen by nearly 300,000 to 8.43M people, or 16.8% of the adult population.
It’s a welcome move in the right direction but to really make the very most of digital technology and ensure that everyone benefits from the massive difference it makes to people’s lives, the UK must continue to prioritise education, accessibility and engagement with IT for its offline citizens.
Race Online 2012 continues to work hard with partners and beyond, to see further improvement. We’re looking forward to seeing the impact of the Give An Hour campaign and our work with the social housing sector and the Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, to help the estimated 4 million people living in social housing who have never been online.
A closer look at the 300,000 fewer offliners suggests that harder-to-reach groups are getting online, supported by the strong work of service delivery specialists such as UK online centres, unionlearn, libraries, Digital Unite and NIACE.
Older people have the most to gain from the web, as mobility and loneliness are more likely to become issues. It’s good to see, therefore, that more than a quarter of a million of the 300,000 are over 55 years old, and 164,000 are over 75 years old.
In fact, older people and those on low incomes are getting online faster than anyone. Those earning less than £300 a week account for 79% of the decrease in employed offliners.
It’s disappointing not to see a decrease in the number of people with disabilities who have never been online. Race Online 2012 is working closely with the government’s eAccessibility Forum to maximise the empowering influence that digital technology often has on the lives of people with disabilities.
Race Online 2012 is working in partnership with AbilityNet, Nominet Trust and the Office for National Statistics, to better measure accessibility as a barrier to internet use. Current data simply says how many people offline have a disability, not whether that disability (or, more to the point, inaccessible technology) is the key barrier.
Around the UK, the biggest decrease in adults who have never been online has been in Cumbria, with a 6.2% drop, and 43,000 fewer adults are now offline in Merseyside, a 3.9% change in the 3 months.
Liverpool is one of the most digitally excluded cities in the UK, so helping people online here is imperative. The Go ON It’s Liverpool campaign is well underway, backed by the Council, working in partnership with Liverpool Vision, Race Online 2012, housing associations, the Health Service, Fire and Rescue, the BBC and others. More than 1,000 people in Liverpool are already pledging to give an hour and help people they know to get online.
