Independent auditors say the Scottish Government and COSLA have yet to set out a coherent action plan or clear ownership for tackling digital exclusion, despite it affecting more than a million people in Scotland.
Audit Scotland's review of digital exclusion work found no single, clearly owned action plan across the Scottish Government and COSLA, despite estimates that more than a million people in Scotland lack meaningful digital access and around one in six adults lack the digital skills for everyday life.
This is not a story about a single missed target. It is a story about accountability: infrastructure spending like R100 addresses one part of the problem, but skills, devices, and affordable connections need the same clarity of ownership that roads and water do.
Read the background on why we treat this as an infrastructure issue, not a charity appeal, on Why it matters.
Vodafone withdrew its £12/month Essentials tariff, raising its entry price to £20. Virgin Media's Essential Broadband at £12.50 is now the lowest verified social tariff on the market — a reminder that these deals and their prices shift, so it's worth checking before you apply.
The government-backed Shared Rural Network has switched on its 140th mobile mast, with 49 now live in Scotland — including a second site on Islay that restores signal from all four networks to an area that previously had none.
The government-backed Shared Rural Network switched on its 50th mobile mast in Scotland on the remote Ardnamurchan peninsula, extending all-four-operator 4G coverage across more than 1,900 square kilometres of rural Scotland — an area larger than Edinburgh and Glasgow combined.
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