The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), as part of its commitment to help charity Go ON UK eliminate the digital divide, is announcing an investment of up to £15 million to build the skills that people and organisations across the UK will need in order to take full advantage of support and services available online.

There are 16 million people in the UK who currently lack the basic online skills to confidently make full use of digital tools available to them and 7.4 million people who have never been online.

BIG is developing the funding programme with Go ON UK who today are gathering senior UK digital leaders together at the Go ON UK Digital Skills CEO Summit and challenge them to commit their organisations to play their part in making the UK the world’s most digitally skilled nation.

BIG’s programme, which is still under development, will be open for applications in the autumn and BIG expects to fund a very small number of UK-wide projects focussing on communities most in need.

BIG is announcing the programme now to give potential applicants the time to consider the sort of partnerships that they will need to be put in place to meet the challenge of raising digital skills across the UK.

BIG aims to build on the huge success of the Go ON Liverpool cross-sector partnership, which included £100,000 of funding from BIG and helped reduce the numbers offline in the city by 55 per cent in just 18 months.

Announcing plans to ‘supercharge’ existing local activity and adapt the Go ON Liverpool blueprint by making digital skills a regional priority, Go ON UK chair, Baroness Lane-Fox will also today unveil plans to kick start the Go ON UK digital skills delivery strategy in the North East of England in October.

Big Lottery Fund chief executive Peter Wanless said: “BIG has £15 million available to the organisations who can demonstrate most convincingly to us how they will use the cash to turn the disconnected and disinterested into confident users of online services.

“We are alerting people now so potential applicants can develop the strongest and most convincing partnerships and plans that they can. We expect to fund only a handful of significant projects, so competition will be intense."

Baroness Lane-Fox, chair Go ON UK, said: “The Big Lottery Fund’s digital skills investment helps us deliver on Go ON UK’s objective to secure vital investment to build the digital skills of people and organisations across the UK. But we need other organisations to play their part and follow suit.

“The UK has built strong digital foundations – reliable infrastructure and high quality services are key components of the UK’s digital economy, which accounts for over 8% of GDP – a greater proportion than any other G20 country.

"However, as the benefits accrue to those who are online, those without basic online skills are left further and further behind and won’t see the full benefits of our current network – let alone the next generation.

“Following the success of Go ON Liverpool, this year Go ON UK and its Founder Partners -Age UK, BBC, Big Lottery Fund, E.ON, EE, Lloyds Banking Group, Post Office and TalkTalk - will aim to supercharge the activity of local partners and help improve basic online skills in the North East of England.

"We are confident we will be able to provide further evidence of the impact of partnership working to drive up digital skills and build a replicable partnership model that we can the roll out across the nation over the next 18 months.”

Prime Minister David Cameron added: “If we are to succeed in the global race, it is vital that we ensure our people and businesses recognise the opportunities that the web offers, and have world-class digital skills.

"That is why this Government is supporting Go ON's ambition to make the UK the world's most digitally skilled nation.

"We are investing around £1 billion in our digital infrastructure to ensure that everyone in the UK has access to fast, reliable broadband.

"These changes will reinforce the UK’s position as a leading digital economy and will help to create local jobs and national growth.”

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