Is Digital inclusive?

Is digital inclusive ?

Including every citizen in the digital revolution

In Aisne 19% of the population had such a lack of digital skills that they considered themselves as excluded from a part of the actual world.

In France most of the formalities have to be done by electronic devices (tax, health services…) even schools are now promoting digital platforms for homework and grades.

We can’t deny that this digital race is often a real quality improvement, increasing administration response speed and making decisions easier to follow.

Despite those real positive steps, being 100% digital cuts a non-negligible part of the population from administrative and formality procedures. Those feelings, shared by almost 20% of the population, are politically dangerous, making people feel being third class citizens.

Saint-Quentin spends a lot of skills and resources to include every citizen in the digital world, making sure that everyone has the possibility to find opportunities in digital.

Things started in 2019 with “solidarity 2.0”, 12 spots around the city, especially made to help people on digital struggle. Every citizen can come to one of the solidarity 2.0 spot to find computers, printer and scanner, and even better someone to guide them on simple digital tasks (CV, printing, scanning…)

In 2021 the city launched the France Service Bus, a moving office with 2 agents which are trained to help people with digital administration tasks. Tax, public health insurance, public helps, retirement… All administrative tasks can be done in the bus. The Mayor’s will is that all citizens can find help at their door without needing to move downtown. That really a game changer in QPV (districts which are pointed by the state to need more social help).

Saint Quentin has launched many helpful digital hands :

One “Conseiller Numérique” (digital counsellor) dedicated to the social centers and a special phone number “Allo Numérique” where citizens can find some remote advice.

The last arrival is a general digital counselor dedicated to individual help for citizen but also for small businesses. Small companies (often just the entrepreneur) seem to have more difficulties jumping on the bandwagon and only a small proportion of them have really embraced the digital evolution. The basic digital help through administration digital network is a game changer. During the Covid crisis every state financial help needs to be asked online, a huge gap appears between companies who are still at the paper and pen age and digital ones.

The covid crisis has a negative impact on the frequentation of digital help points going from 2000 citizen welcomed and helped a month to less than 1000. The main challenge for the city is now to provide a more individual help for every citizen. Looking around our Urbact partners we also see that making people aware of the digital challenge at every age is the next challenge we must address.

Author : Nicolas Gibbe, project manager, Saint-Quentin City