The fund is designed to help more people get onlinePensioner using laptop for internet bankingA pensioner using laptop for internet banking(Image: iStockphoto/tefanamer)

State pensioners could be set to receive free devices under a new £9.5m fund to get more people online. Part of Labour Party government’s Plan for Change, The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund “will help more people get online, drive economic growth and raise living standards”.

Local councils and charities have been urged to help more people get online, as The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) explained that digital exclusion is preventing too many people from reaching their potential. Earlier this week, August 13, it was announced that local charities and councils could benefit from £9.5m in the new UK government funding announced “to turbo-charge grassroots efforts to help the 1.6 million people in the UK who can’t access to online world.”

DSIT confirmed: “Funding will be awarded based on merit to the highest scoring applications, while ensuring as much as possible that projects are funded across all nine regions of England,” Birmingham Live reports. The new funding will target older people of state pension age, so born before 1959, who are less likely to use the internet..

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The scheme includes donating devices like phones and laptops to the digitally excluded. Councils and local authorities will be responsible for handing out the freebies.

Labour Party Telecoms Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “It is unacceptable that in 2025, millions of people across the UK simply can’t access the vast opportunities that technology and the online world offers.

DWP state pensioners set to be handed two devices for homes from LabourDWP state pensioners set to be handed two devices for homes from Labour party

“Digital inclusion is an essential for modern life and work, not just something that’s nice to have, and it forms a critical part of our Plan for Change.

“Making technology widely accessible could be the thing that means a sick patient can speak to a GP remotely, or that helps a young person successfully apply for a job.

Through this funding we’re moving further to empower local leaders and groups nationwide, who are already working tirelessly to get their communities connected and change countless lives for the better.”

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The Government launched its Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund as part of the Digital Inclusion Action Plan, which also includes an ambition to pilot a device donation scheme, so re-purposed Whitehall laptops will go to people who need them.

Older and disabled people, low-income households and jobseekers are among the groups more likely to be digitally excluded, according to the plan.

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