The Digital Britain report was a policy document published in 2009, which outlined the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Government's strategic vision for ensuring that the country is at the leading edge of the global

digital economy The digital economy is a portmanteau of digital computing and economy, and is an umbrella term that describes how traditional Brick and mortar, brick-and-mortar economic activities (production, distribution, trade) are being transformed by the ...

. The

Digital Economy Act 2010 The Digital Economy Act 2010 (c. 24) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act addresses media policy issues related to digital media, including copyright infringement, Internet domain names, Channel 4 media content, local ra ...

was one of the outcomes of this policy.

History

The UK government announced on 29 January 2009 that it planned to have 100%

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

coverage in the UK by 2012, with a minimum speed of 2

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

. Some industry experts, including broadband think tank PointTopic and measurement site SamKnows, claimed that these plans were ill thought out. However, a government-backed forum hoped to address such issues, with a view to succeeding within the 2012 deadline. Closely based on a 2007 government-commissioned think tank report from The Work Foundation, the final Digital Britain report was released on 16 June 2009, and made a number of recommendations with regard to broadband access,

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

use and

public service broadcasting Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...

. Among these recommendations were: * Three year plan to boost digital participation * Universal access to broadband by 2012 * Fund to invest in next generation broadband *

Digital radio Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. This should not be confused with In ...

upgrade by 2015 * Liberalisation of 3G spectrum * Support for public service content partnerships * Changed role for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

* Consultation on how to fund local, national and regional news * A new "more robust system" for the classification of video games In August 2009, responsibility for the project was moved to

Stephen Timms Sir Stephen Creswell Timms (born 29 July 1955) is a British Labour Party politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for East Ham, formerly Newham North East, since 1994. He has served as Minister of State for Social Security and Disabi ...

, the Financial Secretary, who was previously the minister responsible for

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

and used to work in the telecoms industry. He reported to

Peter Mandelson Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, (born 21 October 1953) is a British politician, lobbyist and diplomat who has served as British Ambassador to the United States since February 2025. A member of the Labour Party, Mandelson serve ...

. Mandelson had been seeking a legal and regulatory attack on

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

by statutory instrument. In November 2009 he added these measures into the Digital Economy Bill, but faced objections from leading internet companies. The

Pre-Budget Report The Spring Statement of the British Government, also known as the "mini-budget", is one of the two statements HM Treasury makes each year to Parliament upon publication of economic forecasts, the second being the Autumn Statement presented later i ...

in December 2009 included a new tax of £6 p.a. on home land lines to fund the expansion of broadband. This was included in the

March 2010 United Kingdom Budget The March 2010 United Kingdom Budget, official known as Budget 2010: Securing the recovery, was delivered by Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on 24 March 2010. The budget speech outlined the Labour Governmen ...

, but dropped from the Finance Bill due to lack of time after the general election was called. In his Budget speech, Chancellor

Alistair Darling Alistair Maclean Darling, Baron Darling of Roulanish, (28 November 1953 – 30 November 2023) was a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under prime minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party ...

had also announced

tax break Tax break also known as tax preferences, tax concession, and tax relief, are a method of reduction to the tax liability of taxpayers. Government usually applies them to stimulate the economy and increase the solvency of the population. By this f ...

s for the British

video game industry The video game industry is the tertiary industry, tertiary and quaternary industry, quaternary sectors of the entertainment industry that specialize in the video game development, development, marketing, distribution (marketing), distribution, ...

, and reiterated the Government's target of 90% Broadband coverage by 2017—but omitted to repeat the target of 100% by 2020. In March 2010 the

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) was a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It was created by the Gordon Brown premiership on 5 June 2009 by the merger of the Department for Innovation, Uni ...

announced the National Plan for Digital Participation, aiming "to ensure that everyone who wants to be online can get online, do more online and benefit from the advantages of being online." The Digital Britain report served as a catalyst for a number of later initiatives led by the public and private sectors. In October 2019, the

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the Mayors in England, mayor of the City of London, England, and the Leader of the council, leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded Order of precedence, precedence over a ...

launched "future.now", a consortium of leading companies, education providers, and charities working in collaboration with government to empower everyone to thrive in a digital UK. Pre-eminent firms in the digital economy including Accenture, BT Group, Digital British, Deloitte, and Nominet have either directly supported the coalition or made statements in support of improving digital skills for longer term economic benefit.

References

{{Reflist

History

See also

References

External links