Working together for the greater good

Wednesday, 09 October 2024

Sarah Eynon, Broadband Programme Director, Scottish Government

As the Scottish schools gear up for the October holidays, it only feels like yesterday that it was the start of term and all the prep work associated with getting the kids back to school was high on the agenda. Each year I ask myself ‘What do we need to do to get them ready?’, ‘What are the back to school essentials?’. Some things change as they grow older, but others stay the same because we still class them as ‘essential’.

There are various lists about what’s considered ‘essential’ to life and living these days. Along with water, the essential chemical elements needed on Earth – the building blocks of life as Nasa refers to them – include carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur.

A kid’s view on what makes a happy life includes feeling loved, safe and being able to express themselves without being judged. However, I doubt that will hold much sway when it comes to Christmas and Santa lists are being written!

A changing view

In contrast, there are some aspects of our life where we’re seeing a changing view of what we deem essential. 

‘Access to reliable and fast broadband is increasingly essential for everyday life’ said Audit Scotland in 2016. This isn’t a statement that households or businesses would have recognised at the turn of the century, however, it’s become even more true in the period since it was made. 

We can see this in the campaign Ofcom are leading to encourage broadband providers to offer cheaper or essential packages so that everyone can afford connectivity. This is replicated in the recent lobbying by the Institute of Directors and Federation of Small Businesses to encourage Ofcom to establish an automatic compensation scheme for broadband outages given its criticality to the country’s economic growth and productivity. However, this is only of use if you have a broadband connection.

A track-record of delivery

That’s why the Scottish Government has prioritised improving broadband infrastructure. The results are clear to be seen – in the last ten years more than one million faster connections have been delivered to homes and businesses across Scotland, backed by £1 billion of publicly-driven investment.

In doing so it makes sure that everyone, regardless of their location, can get access to superfast broadband as a minimum and play a full part in digital services and the digital economy.

I’m still in the formative stages of my new role as Broadband Programme Director at the Scottish Government, and in reviewing the status of our programmes, this has led me to consider what are the essentials needed to go beyond our connectivity targets and reach more premises, and in turn more people? 

The greater good

I was reminded of one of the key components at our recent Digital Connectivity Update event, which is held for like-minded people across local authorities and enterprise agencies.

Scotland’s led the way in working together for the greater good. I saw first-hand the wealth of knowledge, expertise and local insight that’s been evident over the duration of the R100 programme, but it will become even more important as the broadband landscape grows even busier with the delivery of Project Gigabit in Scotland.

Two gigabit procurements are already live in Scotland. A local procurement in the Scottish Borders and parts of East Lothian containing 11,000 eligible premises, and a regional procurement in the Aberdeenshire, Angus, Dundee and Moray Coast areas, which includes a further 68,000 eligible premises. In addition, the Type C contracts for Scotland will shortly get underway.

This is all on top of the three regional contracts that are already delivering at pace with delivery partner, Openreach. Using the existing strengths of what has been built in Scotland through public investment in broadband will be key to managing and delivering the outputs of these contracts. 

Time to reflect

One luxury I’m affording myself in the early stages of my role is time for reflection. In today’s society it’s hard to do, which is sadly probably why we don’t do it that often. I don’t think this can be done alone, and at this point in the broadband journey there is benefit from it being a team exercise. 

On the call with local authorities I invited attendees to give me their reflections on what has worked well during the delivery of R100 and what do we need to improve or introduce to be able to deliver one of the most ambitious and complex digital infrastructure programmes in Europe. 

It was great to hear about the open and regular lines of engagement that exist, helping to deal with issues quickly. The comms tools that can be used to engage with communities was also highlighted as a positive. In terms of improvement, being clearer about the options for communities and individuals to get connectivity in amongst a changing landscape really shone through.

The delivery team, stakeholders and contractors not only need the essential tools to deliver at scale and at pace, but also the holistic approach that will allow us to do more than ever before. 

Project Gigabit activity in Scotland has the potential to build on and complement the transformational work already being carried out through our own R100 programme and change the life’s of communities. To do this, essentials alone are not enough.