‘For a country that has just celebrated gaining an Olympic Gold medal for sliding faster down slippery slopes, this is a good time to pause and reflect whether the UK is playing in the right league.’
That’s the bottom line from our observations following the publication of the FTTH Council’s latest review of market development.
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It’s good to see the ‘Circular Economy’ mentioned in the RSA’s latest report but the primary concern is that policy development in public services and economic growth is not being tackled in any cohesive way.
Based on the experience of Community Study Tours in Scandinavia, Groupe Intellex has long argued that the glue that binds these things together is investment in a high quality digital infrastructure.
It may, of course, be far more obviously necessary in remote places, with extremes of weather and transport difficulties, to maximise the use of digital interaction for basic public services such as health and education but the impact has been equally beneficial for enterprise, innovation, competition, community development and the stimulation of inward investment .
The RSA report’s main title reflects the distinct labels of Business, Society and Public Services – regarded by many as being in entirely different camps – but the subtitle – ‘a social productivity framework‘ gets a little closer to the ‘mashed up’ realities and interdependencies of the real economy. It’s a brave step but probably far too much for ‘Sun headlined’ ideologically-driven policy developers looking for simple solutions.
Will sleepwalkers awake when digital floods rise higher than their knees?
Download the full RSA report (PDF) here
GEDI – an index assessing entrepreneurship and development around the world – places the UK in 14th place and behind many Scandinavian countries.
In a separate analysis it is clear that 9 out the top 13 leading countries have a vastly better digital infrastructure than the UK.
There are many factors that bear on the overall assessments but it is becoming clear that for the UK to address its economic deficit there is a pre-enabling requirement to deal with the digital deficit.
Full story here.
Groupe Intellex 