Press Release

e-skills UK CEO attends Digital Britain summit

21/04/09

Karen Price, e-skills UK’s CEO, attended the Digital Britain summit in London last Friday.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, Sly Bailey (Chief Executive, Trinity Mirror) and John Fingleton (Chief Executive, Office of Fair Trading) addressed the 250 attendees. Four panel discussions were held throughout the day to debate the key challenges set out in the interim Digital Britain Report.

Karen was pleased that e-skills UK’s strategic vision, ‘that the UK is recognised as a global leader in delivering business value from technology’, is in line with government thinking. This was evident in the Prime Minister’s speech when he said: 'Only by embracing a digital Britain and taking a lead in the global digital economy can we maintain our competitiveness as one of the world's leading economic and industrial powers in years to come.'

As well as attending last week’s summit, e-skills UK, jointly with Skillset, has provided input into "Digital Britain: the interim report" published in January.

The interim report contains more than 20 recommendations, including specific proposals on next generation networks, universal access to broadband, the creation of a second public service provider of scale, the modernisation of wireless radio spectrum holdings, a digital future for radio, a new deal for digital content rights, and enhancing the digital delivery of public services.

The response to the interim report from e-skills UK and Skillset covers:
an assessment of productivity and skills gaps
an assessment of the existing education and training infrastructure
the case for change in relation to skills for Digital Britain
recommendations for action, including details of specific proposals to implement these recommendations
To download a summary of the response, please go to www.e-skills.com/digitalbritain.