Scottish Complaints Result In More Broadband Cash

Complaints over the Scottish slice of the government’s broadband funding pie have resulted in more money heading north of the border to pay for fibre optic broadband.

The government has decided to allocate Scotland an extra £32 million of connectivity cash.

Fibre Funding

Last August, the government had assigned a total of £362 million to English and Scottish councils out of the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) fund for a fibre rollout into non-commercially viable areas.

Scotland was assigned £68.8 million at the time, a decision criticised by the Scottish government. It complained that the funds were simply not sufficient, and it felt the allocation was unfair because Wales, in comparison, had received £58 million to fund its broadband rollout, although it has a much smaller population and landmass.

In March 2012, these complaints were reiterated when Alex Neil, a member of the SNP who is also Scotland’s infrastructure secretary, met with Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to discuss Scotland’s allocation of money for superfast broadband.

Neil reportedly told Hunt that he believed that Scotland had been “short-changed” when the £530 million broadband investment pot was allocated.

“They have now conceded that we did not get our fair share and I have a meeting fairly soon in London with Mr Hunt to ensure that we get it,” Neil reportedly said at the time.

It seems this pressure has borne fruit, after the government said it would provide an extra £32 million of broadband funding for Scotland.

This amount, coupled with the £68.8 million previously announced, now means that Scotland has a total of £100.8 million to fund its fibre.

Ambitious Plans

The Scottish government has ambitious plans for a superfast broadband deployment north of the border, after it revealed ‘Scotland’s Digital Future – Infrastructure Action Plan’ earlier this year.

In a nutshell, it aims to provide Scotland with 85 to 90 percent coverage of next-generation services (FTTC-based 40to 80 Mbps) by 2015, with the whole country enjoying “world-class digital access” by 2020.

The plan is highly ambitious to say the least, given the amount of money involved and the current poor provision of decent broadband speeds in large swathes of the UK. The national average broadband speed in Scotland is currently around the 6.8Mbps mark (although many people in reality receive much much slower speeds).

Indeed, recent research by the London School of Economics (LSE) and Convergys suggested that the UK is in danger of missing out on the economic and social benefits of superfast broadband due to a lack of government funding and e-skills.

But Scotland believes that its £100.8m BDUK allocation, coupled with £79.5 million from Scotland’s national budget (including £25.5 million from EU funding), will be sufficient for the task.

A further £40 million has “already been earmarked by local authorities” for the deployment – bringing the grand total to approximately £220 million.

This is public money, although Scotland also hopes to use some of the £150 million government fund to eliminate so-called mobile phone notspots in those tough to reach Scottish locations.

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