The UK Government’s Digital Britain report came out yesterday. Hailed as the report that will guide the UK’s strategy to make it a leading player in the new media revolution, Digital Britain was written by Stephen Carter, the minister for communications, technology and broadcasting.

The report lays out 5 goals:

1. To upgrade and modernise the UK’s digital networks to enable the economy to remain globally competitive

2. To attract investment for UK digital content, applications and services

3. To create UK content for UK users, in particular impartial news, comment and analysis

4. To ensure fairness and access for all

5. To develop the infrastructure, skills and take-up that enable the widespread online delivery of public services and business interface with government.

Computing Magazine’s useful roundup of its key findings are as follows:

  • A reaffirmation of the universal service commitment for broadband to deliver at least 2Mbit/s connectivity to every home by 2012, supported by £200m of public funding;
  • A 50p per month levy on all copper fixed lines to help subsidise the rollout of next-generation superfast broadband to the one-third of the country likely to be outside the scope of existing commercial rollout plans;
  • 3G mobile licences to be made indefinite, rather than fixed term, to encourage mobile operators to invest in higher speeds and wider coverage;
  • New legislation and greater powers for Ofcom to identify and target illegal downloaders;
  • Reaffirmation of existing proposals to improve the UK’s IT skills base, from education through to the workforce;
  • Plans for a major exercise to test the UK’s ability to respond to a national telecommunications security emergency later this year;
  • Confirmation of Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s role to form a panel of experts to advise on better use of public data, and Martha Lane Fox’s appointment as digital inclusion champion;
  • A digital switchover plan for all public services, whereby the delivery of universal broadband by 2012 will kick-start a programme to make the internet the primary means of access for public services;
  • A move to cloud computing for provision of government IT services, the so-called “G-cloud” project, to deliver a virtual public service network based on Whitehall-wide standards and IT systems;
  • The government chief information officer, John Suffolk, to have a “double-lock” on approving all significant IT purchases by Whitehall departments

    • The mainstream media has reacted to it by saying variously “big on rhetoric, short on action” The Telegraph, for The Times, the government “shows an extraordinary willingness to extend government intervention into almost every nook of Britain’s broadcasting and communications industry” whilst the FT and the Guardian focused on the introduction of the “surprise” 50p per month broadband tax.

    And finally, joining Sir Alan Sugar amongst the government’s ranks of celebrity businesspeople, the report unveiled Martha Lane Fox as the new “digital inclusion champion”.

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