Digital Inclusion Is Now a Government Remit. Remits Don’t Come With Devices.

Digital inclusion has a new home in government. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was abolished on 21 July 2026, and responsibility for digital inclusion now sits with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The digital inclusion minister is Vicky Foxcroft MP. A clear owner, in a department with digital in its name, is a necessity.

And there is progress to point to. In its first year, the Digital Inclusion Action Plan helped more than a million people get online, distributed thousands of devices, and backed dozens of local programmes.

A remit is a direction, not a device

Here is the catch. A remit does not put a laptop on a kitchen table. A policy does not wipe a hard drive, refurbish a machine, or carry it to the family who needs it. Around 1.6 million adults in the UK still have no smartphone, tablet or laptop, and around 8.5 million lack foundation-level essential digital skills. Those numbers shrink when devices actually change hands.

The gap between intention and delivery is where digital inclusion usually stalls. Everyone agrees it matters. Far fewer can show a working laptop that moved from a disused office to a real person this quarter.

The country is sitting on the answer

The UK does not have a supply problem. It has a distribution problem. The devices needed to close a large part of this gap already exist, retired and boxed up inside businesses that upgraded to something newer. The fix does not require anyone to manufacture a single new machine. It requires the ones we already own to be reused instead of shredded.

That is the model already scaling around the government’s ambition. The IT Reuse for Good Charter now has 53 signatories. In its first year, according to DSIT’s One Year On report, 28,000 individuals received a refurbished device through it. As the exclusive technology partner of the Good Things Foundation, Reconome powers the National Device Bank, and together we have committed to deliver 85,000 devices to digitally excluded people across the UK over the next three years.

Policy sets the direction. Businesses can move today.

A government remit is a good thing to have. It keeps digital inclusion on the agenda and builds the funding and coordination the sector needs. But the businesses reading this do not have to wait for the policy machinery to settle. The surplus IT is already yours. It can be a shredding cost on a spreadsheet, or it can be someone’s first laptop, and a lifeline that provides access to crucial services and means.

The government has named the remit. The devices to deliver on it are in your building. Speak to our team to find out how you can make this impact..

Old tech. New beginning.