Promoting Digital Inclusion

Part of 2. Questions to the Leader of the House – in the Senedd at 2:33 pm on 16 May 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:33, 16 May 2018

Well, as I was saying, we have some very innovative projects going on. But just to use some of the stats that we have: 85 per cent of adults in Wales now regularly use the internet, compared to 66 per cent in 2010, and £1 million a year is invested in the dedicated digital inclusion programme, our Digital Communities Wales programme, and we've done that every year since 2015. Since then, we've supported over 117,300 individuals to engage with technology, and we've trained over 1,000 young digital heroes, which is the programme we're talking about, where young people from schools, colleges and youth organisations volunteer to support older people to engage in digital technology.

Most of the funding activities in this regard are aimed at addressing the basic digital skills that we were just talking about, allowing older people to become less socially isolated and to have access to basic services. But we're very much aware that we also want to increase the digital skills of the youngsters who are actually doing the volunteering and the teaching, and to include that in the curriculum work that we're doing, and with our digital heroes scheme. So, it's a really great programme, and we're actually developing both sides of that, and we're looking to roll that out as widely as possible through Wales. I've been discussing with the Cabinet Secretary for health what we can do in hospitals for some socially isolated people, who have lengthy stays in hospitals, where, in a sense, Llywydd, we have a captive audience.