What's going to move the needle?

At Connected Britain last month, there were discussions about whether, and how, digital inclusion should be treated as systems change. Since then I've been walking round and round the woods, quite literally, trying to think it all through.

What is 'systems thinking'? According to the UK Civil Service, it is "a framework for seeing the interconnections in a system and a discipline for seeing and understanding the whole system; the 'structures' that underlie complex situations."

And Behavioural Systems Mapping? DG Cities say it "combines three complementary approaches: behavioural science, systems thinking, and participatory methods" to understand why behaviours persist and where to intervene.

Digital inclusion IS a complex problem. It shows up across multiple systems. It CAN be nurtured by behavioural science, and REQUIRES participatory methods involving a range of agents, enablers, resource providers and amplifiers.

I can't disagree with any of it.

What I'm stuck on is how, today, this helps:
- a tenant report a fault or pay rent through their housing provider's portal
- a council Digital Inclusion Lead support residents to develop digital confidence and skills
- a rural community without a decent internet connection

While we wait for systems to change, exclusion persists every day, affecting health, opportunity, productivity and finances. Good Things Foundation's Digital Nation 2026 found only 1 in 3 UK adults are "comfortably online".

Councils don't have the capacity to tackle digital inclusion systemically: in an LGA survey of 83 English councils, 43% said they had no dedicated digital inclusion staff member, and those involved averaged 1.24 FTE. I'm an optimist, but 1.24 FTE posts won't change a system.

The ambition of digitally inclusive systems remains the North Star. AND in the meantime, let's support each other to do what we can, informed by what we already know.

You don't have to wait for a system to change to make or influence change.

Today, you can:
* Build confidence: help someone less confident than you.
* Build capacity: develop digital inclusion champions in your workplace or community. They walk the walk and can drive change exponentially.
* Raise awareness: a fish can't see water. Digital exclusion is often the by-product of careless assumptions or a lack of understanding. The housing officer who says "just report it on the portal." The comms team whose answer is "it's on our website." The onboarding process that starts with an emailed link.

We can all look through a digitally inclusive lens. It's not someone else's problem or job. It should be a characteristic of our personal systems thinking and practice.