Council replies
WIRES is writing to the Chief Executive and the Leader of each of Scotland's 32 councils, asking four practical questions: how staff and services support people who can't easily get online, what's being done on affordability and hardware barriers, whether services are built to survive a dropped connection without losing anyone's work, and who's named accountable for a published digital inclusion action plan. This page tracks what happens next — every reply, and every silence.
How this page works
32 of 32 councils have been written to. 0 replied (0% response rate). This updates directly from our outreach log — a council appears here the moment we send it a letter, whether or not it ever answers.
Read the letter we sent
Subject: Is [your council]'s digital service design leaving people behind?
Dear [Chief Executive's name], We treat roads and water as essential infrastructure — something no one is quietly left to go without. Connectivity deserves the same status, and Audit Scotland's August 2024 review found no clear delivery plan for tackling digital exclusion in Scotland, and no one named as accountable for producing one. The numbers are moving the wrong way: Citizens Advice Scotland recorded a 59% rise in digitally excluded clients in two years (1,932 to 3,065), and one in six Scottish adults lack basic digital skills — which is exactly why a non-digital route for essential services isn't a nice-to-have. We're WIRES, campaigning for connectivity to be treated as essential infrastructure across all 32 council areas, including [your council]. We're writing in parallel to all councillors, asking them to speak publicly on this — we wanted council leadership to have the same visibility into where things stand operationally. Rather than a general ask of you, we'd like to know where [your council] stands on four practical questions — about day-to-day practice, not just policy: 1. Staff and service design — Are staff trained to recognise when someone can't easily get online, and does every essential council service still have a working non-digital route, so no resident is cut off by skills, hardware, or address? 2. Affordability and access — What is [your council] doing to promote the discounted broadband social tariff (only around one in twelve eligible households currently use it), and what local options — public wifi points, community networks, library wifi — exist for residents who can't otherwise afford a home connection? 3. Built for unreliable connections — Do council digital services, especially anything residents rely on for e-learning, benefits, or housing, avoid unnecessary streaming and data costs and use reasonable file sizes? And if a connection drops mid-task, is that work saved automatically — for residents and staff alike — rather than lost? 4. Ownership — Audit Scotland's own review quoted Accounts Commission member Nichola Brown saying councils "must be clearer about how they will reduce digital exclusion in their local area." Is there a published digital inclusion action plan for [your council], with someone named as accountable for it? Could you reply by Wednesday 16 December — either with a short statement we can quote publicly, or a summary of where [your council] stands, so we record it accurately? See what we've found so far, council-by-council: https://wires.org.uk/council-replies Thank you for your time, William Ellis WIRES — wires.org.uk If you'd rather not hear from us again, just reply and say so.
Contacted so far
Dumfries and Galloway Awaiting reply
Stirling Awaiting reply
Aberdeen City Awaiting reply
Aberdeenshire Awaiting reply
Angus Awaiting reply
Argyll and Bute Awaiting reply
City of Edinburgh Awaiting reply
Clackmannanshire Awaiting reply
Dundee City Awaiting reply
East Ayrshire Awaiting reply
East Dunbartonshire Awaiting reply
East Lothian Awaiting reply
East Renfrewshire Awaiting reply
Eilean Siar Awaiting reply
Falkirk Awaiting reply
Fife Awaiting reply
Glasgow City Awaiting reply
Highland Awaiting reply
Inverclyde Awaiting reply
Midlothian Awaiting reply
Moray Awaiting reply
North Ayrshire Awaiting reply
North Lanarkshire Awaiting reply
Orkney Islands Awaiting reply
Perth and Kinross Awaiting reply
Renfrewshire Awaiting reply
Scottish Borders Awaiting reply
Shetland Islands Awaiting reply
South Ayrshire Awaiting reply
South Lanarkshire Awaiting reply
West Dunbartonshire Awaiting reply
West Lothian Awaiting reply
Heard back from your council?
Or want to add your own voice
If your council has responded to a constituent letter about digital inclusion, or if you'd like to send your own, use our template letter or tell us what you heard — resident replies help us track councils faster than we can alone.
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