Project 03 / 08 — Social Policy
Digital Inclusion Programme
Client
North East Lincolnshire Council
Role
End-to-End Research, Service Design & Internal Tooling
Sector
Social Policy & Inclusion
Year
2025 — Present
Context
A 2021 digital exclusion discovery dissolved before delivery. In 2025, following the Government's action plan, the programme was restarted from first principles.
I led the project end-to-end using a double diamond framework, positioning digital as a tool for reducing social exclusion — not the goal itself.
The programme is currently closing out the Define phase. The findings have been presented more than a dozen times, including at SOCITM, and the work is now developing in collaboration with DSIT.
Core Issues Identified
Outdated digital inclusion webpages, last updated 2022
Broken links and defunct support pathways
Lack of coherent strategy or delivery ownership
Fragmented historical initiatives with low uptake
Digital capability treated as the problem, not structural exclusion
A Double Diamond, Run Properly
Five phases, each with its own purpose — nothing skipped to get to a roadmap faster.
Set Up
Align team and governance
Discovery & Engagement
Gather insights
Define & Synthesis
Make sense of findings
Closing now
Ideate & Design Options
Co-design and prototype
Next
Action & Next Steps
Agree the next stage
Still reaching out for additional engagement before this phase closes — the aim is that no one falls through the gaps before the programme moves into Develop.
Getting The Buy-In, Then Getting Out There
Before any of this could be designed, 140 staff needed to understand why service design works this way — then the research had to go where the evidence actually was.
Internal Buy-In & Methodology
An SPP workshop with 140 staff members on insight statements and "How Might We" questions — teaching the underlying service design methodology so the whole organisation, not just this team, understood why it mattered.
Lower Income Households
Two sessions built around real scenarios and signposting, designed specifically for this group rather than adapted from a generic script.
Careers Cafe
Hyper-specific scenarios and signposting built for the people who use this service, not a repeat of the household sessions.
Disabled Residents
Targeted signposting work that also produced quick-win changes shipped to the front end of the website during the research itself.
ESOL Communities
Scenarios, signposting, pop-ups, community sessions and forums curated in Arabic and Polish, meeting people in their own language rather than expecting them to meet us in ours.
Ongoing Outreach
Additional engagement continuing right up to the close of Define — the list above is where we've been, not where we've stopped.
From The Storyboard
Three moments where a well-designed service still leaves someone out.
Who is excluded — Young people entering the workforce
"Lack of employment-focused digital skills beyond smartphones and tablets."
Who is excluded — Patients needing access to wellbeing services
"GPs lack awareness or clear digital referral routes into the service."
Who is excluded — Older adults, 85 and over, managing personal finances
"Fears of being scammed means they won't carry out online transactions independently."
What I Did
Re-established the foundations
- —Conducted a quantitative and qualitative landscape review
- —Audited existing initiatives and uptake data
- —Mapped barriers to access and systemic constraints
- —Identified targeted user segments
Led user research & synthesis
- —Facilitated workshops with lived-experience participants
- —Generated 22 user stories from a single workshop
- —Themed insights into 6 core exclusion drivers
- —Reframed assumptions around "who is excluded"
Designed the intervention framework
- —Created a storyboard aligned to real-world journeys
- —Structured a sprint action plan with stakeholder accountability
- —Developed problem statements and "How Might We" questions
- —Aligned outcomes with the Marmot 8 Principles
Built internal capability and external visibility
- —Presented findings more than 12 times, including at SOCITM
- —Delivered an SPP workshop on insight statements and "How Might We" questions to 140 staff members, teaching the underlying service design methodology
- —Built an actor behaviour map, insight stories and personas from the research
- —Growing the work in collaboration with DSIT
Six Insights
What the research kept surfacing, in the residents' own terms.
01 — Digital access is not universal
Insight — Many people lack the devices, data or physical tools needed to complete digital services.
Who is excluded — low-income households, older people, people with disabilities, families with EHCP needs.
02 — Digital confidence is fragile
Insight — People avoid digital services when they feel unsafe, scared or lack confidence, especially after a negative experience.
Who is excluded — older adults, parents and people in crisis.
03 — The service assumes independence & support
Insight — Digital journeys assume people can complete tasks alone, but many rely on family, friends or community groups.
Who is excluded — older people, people with disabilities and those with complex needs.
04 — Info & guidance is unclear or inaccessible
Insight — People cannot access services when information is unclear, poorly communicated, or unavailable in the right language or format.
Who is excluded — non-UK nationals, first-time users, people unfamiliar with the systems.
05 — Digital services hide offline dependencies
Insight — Many "digital" services still require offline steps — printing, calling, attending — which creates hidden barriers.
Who is excluded — people without printers, people without confidence, people with limited time or mobility.
06 — Digital skills are not aligned with service needs
Insight — Users may be digitally capable in everyday life but lack the specific skills needed for service access or employment systems.
Who is excluded — young people lacking workplace IT skills, volunteers and workers expected to use new digital tools.
These insight themes are the design territories the closing presentation carried forward — aligned to the Marmot principles, and the working brief for Develop and co-design planning.
A Tool Born From The Research
Most of what the council puts in front of residents — letters, forms, website copy — is written at a reading age of 14 to 17. Some of the wards we serve test at an estimated reading age of 7.
That gap doesn't just mean content is hard to read. It means communication is likely misunderstood, creates fear and panic in exactly the moments residents most need clarity, and gives people a multitude of reasons to stop engaging altogether. It turned out that digital exclusion was, in part, a plain-language problem.
14–17
Reading age most council comms were written at
~7
Estimated reading age in some wards we serve
I built a staff-only readability tool from scratch — plain HTML, holds no data, lives on an internal server. It started as a single Flesch-Kincaid score. That didn't cover the basis, so I kept building.
Auto-Detects Content Type
Identifies whether text is a form, survey, press release or news update, and applies the formula mix that fits that context.
Scores Across Four Formulas
Flesch-Kincaid, Coleman-Liau, Gunning Fog and FORCAST, read together rather than relying on any single score.
Targets Ward-Level Reading Age
Where content is aimed at a specific ward, the tool shows the reading age that ward is estimated to sit at.
Prioritises & Recommends
Suggests phrase-level changes, ranks what needs fixing first, and recommends how to change it.
It's in pilot testing now. The end goal is a Copilot-based agent available to every member of staff, so checking a piece of content before it goes out becomes the norm, not an extra step someone has to remember. And while it grew out of this programme, the same content-clarity lens is already shaping how forms read in the Environmental & Regulatory rework and how content is written inside the Digital Platform Review's new Hub — one insight, three programmes.
The Stakeholder Map
Nine categories, dozens of organisations — none of them owning digital inclusion on their own.
Internal NELC
Organisation & Service Design Team, Customer Access Team, ICT & Digital Team, Public Health & Adult Social Care, Children's Services, Place Board
Strategic & Policy
Local Government, Combined Authority / LEP, Digital Poverty Alliance, Good Things Foundation, Dynamo Digital Inclusion, FutureDotNow, Humber Digital Skills Partnership
Health & Wellbeing
NHS Humber and North Yorkshire, GP Practices & Primary Care, Carers Support Service, NAVIGO, Public Health NELC
Safety & Inclusion
Humberside Police, NEL Safeguarding Children, Fire & Rescue Services, NSPCC / Domestic Abuse Services
Community & Voluntary
Foresight NEL, Centre4, Faraway CIC, Citizens Advice NEL, Voluntary Action NEL, ConnectNEL, Age UK, Later in Life Partnership
Employment & Welfare
Department for Work and Pensions, Jobcentre Plus, ERA Employment Project, YMCA Humber, Adult Careers Team (NELC)
Education & Skills
Lincs Digital, Create NEL, Schools & Colleges, Grimsby Institute, UKSPF Projects, VCSE Skills Providers
Infrastructure & Access
Lincs Inspire Libraries, Housing Associations, SocialBox.Biz, IT Reuse for Good
Business & Commercial
Business Hive, Economy and Growth Team (NELC)
Impact So Far / Define phase, closing now
Repositioned digital inclusion as systemic intervention, not skills training
Created an evidence-based foundation for future funding bids
Embedded a digital inclusion lens into future service discovery standards
Established a framework to integrate inclusion into all council projects
Surfaced a plain-language readability tool now shaping content across two other programmes
Next: closing Define with continued outreach so no one falls through the gaps, then carrying the insight themes above into Develop and co-design planning.