techUK市长宣言支持充满活力的数字经济和更好的公共服务

Supporting a VibrantDigital Economy Introduction In May 2024 over 26 million people will head to the polls to vote for a regional Mayor. Regions in England voting for their Mayor are faced with a range of challenges: fromdemographic change, to improving employment opportunities and local economic wealth.Set against a backdrop of rising citizen expectations and budget cuts, this poses a significantpublic policy challenge for Mayors. These challenges cannot be faced alone, and digital technology presents the opportunity todo things differently and better for people and places. The tech sector adds £150 billion p.a.1to the UK economy. The financial and economicrewards are clear, but they cannot be achieved without cultivating and harnessing the localtech ecosystem. From growing regional economies, creating new jobs and careers, improving public services,new methods of policing and community safety, sharing information and communicating,recreation facilities, next generation innovation, regenerating local high streets, enhancing ourenvironment, updating our transport system and mobility needs, the tech sector helps andsupports every aspect of life. The Mayors that recognise and engage with the tech sector will be able to re-shape andintegrate services while championing the local economy to create better places to liveand drive regional growth. This Manifesto includes a series of recommendations for thenew Mayors to help them engender change and build capacity across the ecosystem ofthe region. It can act as a blueprint in helping to create a truly digital region. This includeseverything from how the Mayors can reinvigorate local economies by better supportingstart-ups to tackling the skills shortage to delivering better digital public services for peopleand places. A vibrant digitaleconomy helps drivegrowth, create jobs,secure inwardinvestment, fosterinnovation and is moreglobally connected. Investment Zones (IZs) should be the bastions of eachregion’s tech enablement. All IZs have an importanttech element to them and, while progress is beingmade, it is too slow, and does not engage enoughSMEs, either those from the tech sector or thoseworking with the tech sector. IZs should create spacesto allow businesses, consumers and customers tointeract with new technology. techUK believes that the Mayor’s shouldseek to: Set a long term plan for digitising theeconomy A quarter of UK SMEs do not use basic digital toolssuch as e-commerce, accounting and HR which havebeen found to boost sales by 18%, 11.8% and 7.5%respectively over 3 years (referenced in techUK’sSeven Tech Priorities report2). Mayors should beincentivising digital adoption for SMEs throughtargeted interventions and schemes that utilise thesavings from Help to Grow: Digital. Outline a digital skills journey – for today,tomorrow and forever At a national level techUK has called for a digitalskills tool. However, that doesn’t mean this alonemust dictate, or hold up, local activity on this agenda.Mayors should ensure their communities are earlyadopters of digital skills by providing a plan forcreating a talent pipeline, a digital curriculum offer forschools that works with industry and championingcyber literacy as a part of training programmes forall age groups. Digital inclusion should also form akey part of each Mayor’s digital strategy with easilyaccessible programmes that monitor progress. Mayors should look to appoint a single identifiedindividual with responsibility for acceleratingdigitisation across the economy, and engagingwith the tech sector to drive inward investment,support and connect with scale-ups and championdigital skills. Some areas still lack basic access to the internet.In the areas of England electing a Mayor in May,only 69.8% of households have access to gigabitbroadband and 79.7% have access to 5G coverage(data from techUK’s Local Digital Index 20233). Mayorsshould seek to engage with the digital communicationsector to push toward 100% coverage and collectivelylook to examine uptake, not just coverage to drive abetter picture of resident and business capacity andengagement in the tech sector. Nurture a start-up and scale-up environment Mayors need to adopt a “grow your own” strategy toaid their local business environment and move awayfrom hoping unicorns spring up in their region. Whileunicorns are a catchy way to quickly assess the techlandscape, this is only a valuation rather than measureof output, and should not be the only metric. Mayorsshould be focused on supporting innovative techbusinesses that would benefit quickly from scale-upsupport and those businesses where digitisation willhelp them improve productivity quickly and efficiently. Create data dashboards With a growing number of Mayors and combinedauthorities, and sizeable budgets, there is a need tohave regional data that can be compared as well asused to assess the impact of programmes in differentlocalities. This, and other recommendations, shouldbe des