The Public Accounts Committee has said that it is not convinced the government will meet its downgraded targets for the national roll out of gigabit broadband.

In 2020, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) admitted its initial plan to deliver nationwide super-fast broadband by 2025 was unachievable. It revised the target down to 85 per cent coverage by the same year.

The government is now aiming for full coverage by 2030. But MPs said that this does not cover the hardest to reach areas, which include around 134,000 homes, and suggested that the government department has no detailed plan in place for reaching communities where it is not commercially viable to do so.

The Committee, which examines the value for money of government projects, claims the DCMS is relying too heavily on commercial contractors for the progress that has been made so far and that over-reliance on these providers is perpetuating the UK’s “great digital divide”.

It added that while the department reports that the proportion of premises in the United Kingdom with access to gigabit broadband leapt from 40 per cent to 57 per cent between May and October 2021, this is largely due to Virgin Media O2 upgrading its cable network.

It says that the department has made “little tangible progress in delivering internet connectivity beyond that achieved by the private sector”.

“DCMS’ planning and project management show all the signs of the previous rollout – that the focus will continue to be on the easier to reach areas and there is still no clear plan for the hardest to reach communities,” said Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee. “It couldn’t really explain how broadband has got as far as it has in this critical national strategy, beyond “thanks to Virgin Media”, and incredibly it still doesn’t have a real plan for getting the rest of the way to its own downgraded targets.

“What DCMS does know full well is it can’t rely on the private sector to get fast broadband to the hardest to reach, excluded and rural areas, and despite its repeated promises to do exactly that we are apparently little nearer to closing ‘the great digital divide’ developing across the UK nor addressing the social and economic inequality it brings with it.”

Share Story: