Cost-of-living crisis: how to tackle digital exclusion

Join our Conference: Overcoming the cost-of-living crisis

The cost-of-living crisis means that while the costs of essential household goods such as food, drink, oil, and gas are increasing at the fastest rate in 40 years, wages are not increasing at the same rate. This has left almost eight million people in the UK struggling to pay their bills.

More than two million UK households are in debt on their energy bills and nearly six million households are struggling to afford essential telecoms services such as mobile, broadband, and landline services.

This strained access to digital tools means that people are increasingly struggling to do essential day-to-day activities, such as working from home and accessing healthcare online.

For charities, tackling digital exclusion during the cost-of-living crisis requires a two-pronged approach: ensuring that your communications and services are accessible to all service users, and working to address the problem of digital exclusion in its own right.

Be aware of who is affected

Digital exclusion is the experience of not being included in the use of digital and online tools for reasons of access, skills, motivation, or trust. It is related to inequality because those who are already disadvantaged are more likely to experience digital exclusion, and digital exclusion itself can be a factor in causing further disadvantages.

In the UK, the groups most affected by digital exclusion include older people, vulnerable young people, those in social housing, those on lower wages or who are unemployed, those with disabilities, offenders or ex-offenders, people with fewer educational qualifications, people living in rural areas, people who are homeless, and people whose first language is not English.

It is important to be intersectional in your understanding of digital exclusion: some people belong to multiple of the above demographics; many will also belong to groups who are disadvantaged in other ways.

For example, a Financial Conduct Authority survey of 19,000 people between February and June 2022 found that 27% of black respondents said they found it a heavy burden to keep up with bills, compared with around 15% of UK adults generally.

In addition, the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute explain that financial difficulty and mental health problems can be a “vicious cycle” when it comes to digital exclusion, particularly when job applications and interviews are increasingly being made online, and the Universal Credit benefit system is “digital by default”.

Decreased access to resources such as Wi-Fi, broadband and physical equipment may also affect people’s ability to use assistive technology, which will likely have the biggest impact on older people and people with disabilities.

Charities should seek to deliver their services according to the differences in people’s needs, ensuring that they are as inclusive as possible. Social charities can also observe the knock-on effects of digital exclusion upon their users (such as difficulty finding work or accessing healthcare) and adapt their services accordingly.

Help to increase digital access

If possible, charities should conduct user research in order to understand the needs of their service users. This can help you ensure your resources are spent appropriately and go as far as possible in tackling digital exclusion.

To increase digital access, charities should consider how they can help their service users to access Wi-Fi. Perhaps you can work to create your own Internet café or free Wi-Fi hub, or maybe you can raise awareness about local resources that already exist such as free-to-use library computers.

Your charity can build relationships with institutions such as local councils to ensure that these services are delivered to appropriately serve the community.

Charities should also be aware that their service users may also be affected by a lack of access to physical equipment such as computers. Consider what you can do to connect these resources with those who need them.

In addition, your charity can engage in political activity where relevant to its purpose. This may be suitable or even necessary for addressing the roots of problems faced by your service users during the cost-of-living crisis.

An example of charities engaging in political activity to respond to the crisis is that on the 17 October 2022, Trussell Trust, Food Aid Network, and Feeding Britain delivered a letter to Downing Street signed by more than 3,000 food bank staff and volunteers. The letter called on the then Prime Minister Liz Truss “to take urgent action to end the need for emergency food”.

Another example is the joint statement made by voluntary sector partners on the cost-of-living crisis, asking the government to “urgently deliver meaningful financial support to those in greatest need”.

Campaigning, as is seen in Kidney Care UK’s Priced out of Existence campaign, is another way for charities to influence change.

Your charity can take appropriate action against digital exclusion by assessing the needs of your service users alongside the charity’s capacity to employ these different approaches.

Consider other elements of digital exclusion

Since before the beginning of the cost-of-living crisis, many have been digitally excluded for reasons other than access, such as skills (not having the abilities to support their use of the Internet), motivation (not feeling that using the Internet is a good thing), and trust (fearing the risk of crime and not knowing where to start online).

Charities such as Citizens Online, Good Things Foundation, and Age UK are engaged with helping these people learn and feel comfortable using online tools.

If your charity is looking to tackle these elements of digital exclusion for its own service users, you can consider facilitating digital skills training, intergenerational mentoring, and raising awareness.

But charities should also have a strategy for reaching and delivering services to people while they are digitally excluded. Not all service users will be able to prioritise getting digital – for access reasons or otherwise.

For example, older people who suffer from dementia might be limited in their ability to embrace the online world but should still be included in those charity services relevant to them.

Consider what you can do to bridge gaps such as these, opening and maintaining lines of communication with those who may be under your radar right now.

Work around digital exclusion

Always ensure you keep up some form of analogue communication such as postal mail, phone calls, and in-person meetings and events. It is important to make sure that in-person meetings and events are advertised through analogue forms of contact and not only online.

Charities can engage with their service users to tackle digital exclusion during the cost-of-living crisis as appropriate to their needs. Your charity can adapt its service delivery and communications to include those with reduced access, as well as taking measures to help increase digital access.