“According to the WMCA [West Midlands Combined Authority], approximately 22% of the population of the West Midlands is offline completely” (Public Sector Executive magazine, report on the WMCA, September 2023). It gets worse. The WM Digital Roadmap states that in total… “46% of the population are non or limited users of the Internet”.

And the supposed ‘West Midlands Combined Authority’ actually only covers the central urban parts, not the proper West Midlands…

Thus it’s not as if rural stick-in-the-muds are skewing the figures. “Offline completely” presumably means no mobile phone, either. Something to remember when your marketing guru tells you that Instagram and TikTok are everything you need to aim for.

The further problem is that many people who are minimally online also have no passport or driving licence, and thus can’t log on to many online government systems.