The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), as part of its commitment to help charity Go ON UK, has announced an investment of £15m to build the digital skills that people and organisations across the UK need.
BIG is developing the funding programme with Go ON UK, who on Monday 13 May will gather senior UK digital leaders together at the Go ON UK Digital Skills CEO Summit and challenge them to commit their organisations help make the UK more digitally skilled.
BIG’s programme, which is still under development, will be open for applications in the autumn and expects to fund a very small number of UK-wide projects focussing on communities most in need.
Big Lottery Fund chief executive Peter Wanless said: “BIG has £15m available to the organisations who can demonstrate most convincingly to us how they will use the cash to turn the disconnected and disinterested into confident users of online services.
“We are alerting people now so potential applicants can develop the strongest and most convincing partnerships and plans that they can. We expect to fund only a handful of significant projects, so competition will be intense.
BIG aims to build on the huge success of the Go ON Liverpool cross-sector partnership, which included £100,000 of funding from BIG and helped reduce the numbers offline in the city by 55 per cent in 18 months.
Baroness Lane-Fox, Chair Go ON UK, said: “The Big Lottery Fund’s digital skills investment helps us deliver on Go ON UK’s objective to secure vital investment to build the digital skills of people and organisations across the UK. But we need other organisations to play their part and follow suit.”
While David Cameron also added: “If we are to succeed in the global race, it is vital that we ensure our people and businesses recognise the opportunities that the web offers, and have world-class digital skills. That is why this Government is supporting Go ON's ambition to make the UK the world's most digitally skilled nation.
"We are investing around £1bn in our digital infrastructure to ensure that everyone in the UK has access to fast, reliable broadband. These changes will reinforce the UK’s position as a leading digital economy and will help to create local jobs and national growth.”