Digital Britain

Book excerpt: In this document the Government sets out a programme of action designed to position the UK as a long-term leader in communications, creating an industrial framework that will fully harness digital technology. The UK's digital dividend will transform the way business operates, enhance the delivery of public services, stimulate communications infrastructure ready for next-generation distribution and preserve Britain's status as a global hub for media and entertainment. This approach seeks to maximise the digital opportunities for all citizens. The report contains: (1) an analysis of the levels of digital participation, skills and access needed for the digital future, with a plan for increasing participation, and more coherent public structures to deal with it; (2) an analysis of communications infrastructure capabilities; (3) plans for the future growth of creative industries, proposals for a legal and regulatory framework for intellectual property and proposals on skills and investment support and innovation; (4) a restatement of the need for specific market intervention in the UK content market, with implications and challenges for the BBC and C4 Corporation and other forms of independent and suitably funded news; (5) an analysis of the skills, research and training markets, and what supply side issues need addressing for a fully functioning digital economy; (6) a framework for digital security and digital safety at international and national levels and recognition that a world of high speed connectivity needs a digital framework not an analogue one; (7) a review of what all of this means for the Government and how digital governance in the information age demands new structures, new safeguards, and new data management, access and transparency rules.