Is the coalition Government keeping its promise on IT?

On 12 May 2010, the UK’s coalition government was established after the signing of an agreement between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.

A month before that, in issue 317, we asked the three parties then contesting the election to spell out what a government led by each of them would mean for computer users.

Twelve months on, we are going to look at the promises made by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and see how they have delivered.

Broadband and the BBC
We started by asking about broadband policy. Labour and the Liberal Democrats favoured a ‘broadband tax’ of 50p a month on every home phone line to pay for the extension of broadband internet into rural communities.

Instead, the Conservatives proposed taking money from the BBC licence fee that is being used for the ‘switchover’ from analogue to digital (Freeview) TV.

Once the switchover is complete the extra money will be spent on wiring up previously unconnected parts of the countryside.

In December 2010 the Government published its proposals in this area, saying they would lead to improvements for employers and employees.

Four areas – the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, North Yorkshire, Cumbria and the ‘golden valley’ of Herefordshire – have been allocated money for pilot projects that are already in progress.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport told us that it was ‘expecting an underspend’ on the switchover budget and that this was already being spent on the pilots.

All three parties were keen to stress they had been ‘hands-off’ when it came to the BBC, but the corporation has not been left out of the cuts.

The Government has asked the BBC to make cuts worth around 16 per cent for the next five years, and the licence fee has been fixed at £145.50 for the next two years.

The BBC also has to pay for the World Service and BBC Monitoring – previously funded by the Foreign Office and Cabinet Office respectively – as well as S4C.

Websites were not mentioned in the Government’s settlement with the BBC, but the Corporation has already started making cuts: in January it announced that it was to close some 200 websites and trim its online budget by a quarter. There will be fewer blogs and forums, and community sites such as H2G2 will go entirely, as will teen services Switch and Blast.