Oral evidence: Digital skills gap, HC 740Tuesday 26 January 2016
Oral evidence, 26 January 2016.
Witnesses
Simon Humphreys, National Co‑ordinator, Computing At School, Amy Solder, Education Project Lead, Nesta, and Sheila Flavell, Chief Operating Officer, FDM Group, gave evidence.
Chair
Thank you for coming this afternoon, and welcome to the Science and Technology Select Committee of the House of Commons. Could you introduce yourselves and your positions, please?
Simon Humphreys
I am Simon Humphreys, national co‑ordinator for the Computing At School group. I was a teacher for 25 years before embarking with Computing At School, first in music and then in computer science. So that the panel is aware, I am very hearing impaired, so I would be grateful for loud voices.
Amy Solder
My name is Amy Solder. I am the project lead for education at Nesta, which is a charity focused on innovation. Nesta’s area of expertise on this particular panel is looking at informal education and support for the computing curriculum, as well as how technology is being used across many subjects in schools.
Sheila Flavell
My name is Sheila Flavell. I would like to thank you very much for inviting FDM to participate in today’s Committee. I am chief operating officer of FDM Group. FDM is the UK’s leading IT employer. Last year, 2015, we employed 893 graduates in IT in FDM. Since 2008 we have employed 5,000 IT graduates in our organisation. We firmly support diversity, and today I am looking forward to offering our opinion on how schools, universities and industry can work together to improve the digital skills gap.
Chair
I think all three of you listened to the previous session. We want to get as many opinions as we possibly can. Was there anything in the evidence we heard in the previous session that you thought was fundamentally wrong, that you disagreed with or on which you had a different perspective?
Sheila Flavell
I would like to pick up one previous question from you, which was whether the Government were right to abolish the ICT curriculum. I have a letter from a school teacher and head of faculty, which arrived only yesterday. She advises me that in 2015 111,000 students sat the GCSE IT, of whom 43% were female. Conversely, 35,000 students sat the computing GCSE A-level, of whom only 14% were female. For me, that is very worrying, because if we are looking at unconscious bias and the gender gap and females are being drawn more towards the ICT programme, I hope we can look at reform and rebranding and not eradication in this area.
Chair
Are there any other comments? It does not matter if there aren’t.
Simon Humphreys
One comment that came up a lot in the previous panel was the focus on technology. I guess it is part of the Select Committee’s remit, but certainly within the computing curriculum it is important that we separate the computing curriculum from the technology. A significant amount of brilliant resources and activities are going on in our schools in an unplugged curriculum. The role of teaching some core computer science principles could be performed in this room; we do not need machines, tablets or whatever. That point did not come across quite as clearly from the earlier panellists.
Chair
Sheila Flavell, why is the employability of computer science graduates so low? Why do so many of those graduates find it difficult to get employment?
Sheila Flavell
You are absolutely right; it is the degree discipline where there is the highest unemployment. There is a serious mismatch between what is taught in schools and universities and what businesses require. We work actively with 134 universities; we have partnerships with them. We speak with another 70 universities. Last year we received 31,000 applications from graduates within the UK who had studied STEM and were looking for a career in IT. They wanted to apply to FDM because they had been unsuccessful. They do not have the skills and experience to get into a role in IT and the education system is not preparing them well, or at all.
Chair
Do you think there is something fundamentally wrong in the design of computer science courses?
Sheila Flavell
I do, yes. I feel they are too theoretical and there is not enough vocational learning. One of the big reasons we at FDM turn people away is that they do not have the right base level of soft skills. One of the core components of our eight to 16-week training programme is to train graduates in soft skills to help them to be work ready.
Chair
Do you know how many undergraduates are now pursuing computer science and IT to graduate level?
Sheila Flavell
I do not have that figure.
Chair
If you could send it to us, it would be helpful. Just over a year ago in December 2014, the Government published their science and innovation strategy, in which they said there would be an independent review of computer science degree accreditation so that universities do better and get graduates into the labour market. If I may put this to the whole panel, do you have any perspective or views on that review?
Amy Solder
I do not have any on that one in particular.
Simon Humphreys
I do not. I welcome it, given the figures that have been mentioned. I represent and am employed by BCS The Chartered Institute for IT, which accredits many of the universities. It is undertaking its own independent review on the matter and will be contributing to the Shadbolt review.
Sheila Flavell
I was writing. I am afraid I missed the first part of the question.
Chair
Essentially, I was asking whether you had any views on the Government’s review of their science and innovation strategy and how they could improve computer science degree accreditation—so that they could answer the question we asked before about why undergraduate courses were not designed very well. Do you have any views on that review?
Sheila Flavell
I have not read the review.
Dr Mathias
I am sure there are lots of ideas, but perhaps I could start with how you think girls can be encouraged into this and STEM subjects. Is there something another part of industry or Government have not thought of to get girls to do it, and to carry on in the industry?
Simon Humphreys
There are many factors, aren’t there? Fundamentally, the change to the computer curriculum will reap results in this particular area. The focus and emphasis on computational thinking skills from primary school all the way through to secondary school will enable younger children, girls and boys, to understand much better the technology they will end up having to use; and we should try to provide the resources, as we do within Computing At School, to support teachers. We need to be solving real-world problems; there needs to be relevance. A very good example was provided earlier by the previous panel about the way in which technology can enable us to access real data and solve real problems within the classroom in a much more inventive and invigorating environment than we might have done hitherto. The phrase we have is: year eight is too late. If we have not enabled, motivated and inspired girls as well as boys that STEM-related subjects and computer science are relevant to them and provide an opportunity to participate in the workplace in something so transformative and life-changing, we have lost them. That is why the changes made to the primary curriculum for computing in computational thinking, creative problem solving and setting challenges pre‑puberty are very important.
Dr Mathias
That is interesting. Basically, it is a matter of making it exciting, because that is not gender bias.
Simon Humphreys
I pause over the word “exciting”, because sometimes there are inevitably aspects of education that are tough to learn and that might come across as being dull, but in the hands of good teachers any subject can be made exciting. One of the key facets for any good computing education system to be world class is to put the right tools and the right understanding and confidence into the hands of the teachers and it will be transformative.
Dr Mathias
Where I am there is an all-girls nursery school. Five-year-olds became incredibly excited when I brought in an inventor who happened to be a man. I did not see a gender problem at all. They were all buzzing. What do you think?
Amy Solder
I support Simon in the sense of working and developing at primary level. I would argue against doing activities focused just on getting girls. It is more about creating a broad range of activities that will stimulate interest for many of them, rather than targeting girls. Wearing Nesta’s hat in particular, informal learning has the greatest success when the appeal is much broader. In something like Code Club, which is an after-school coding club in primary schools, it is fairly equal between boys and girls. Apps for Good runs a programme in secondary schools, predominantly about creating an app to solve a social problem. Again, it is fairly equal between boys and girls. It is the breadth of activities rather than targeting just girls. On its not being a gender issue, one of our concerns, looking particularly at informal education, is that it is not necessarily a gender divide; it is a geographical divide. Enormous numbers of activities are centred in London and particularly Manchester in the north-west. However, other areas that are more rural and less urban-centred have many fewer opportunities. That is definitely an area to look at. It has not necessarily been covered before because a lot of focus has been on gender.
Dr Mathias
You are going back to breadth in what you are doing rather than going down one route.
Amy Solder
Yes.
Sheila Flavell
I concur with my colleagues on the panel. To add to their comments, in a recent survey commissioned by Accenture, 4,000 girls, women, parents and teachers were surveyed. Of the 12-year-old girls surveyed, 60% said that IT was too difficult and it was for blokes, not for girls; only 14% of the parents understood the benefits of IT; and 51% of parents felt they were ill-equipped to guide their children into a career in technology. There is also a distinct lack of role models. If I asked anybody here to identify a role model in technology, you would probably think immediately of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. I am sure the names of Baroness Lane-Fox, Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook, or Marissa Mayer, president and CEO of Yahoo, would not come up. Children do not recognise those formidable ladies as role models. We need to do more in government, industry and education to promote more female role models. I have a saying, which is that people cannot be what they cannot see. If parents and teachers, who are the prime influencers of young girls, cannot guide them in information technology and the fantastic careers available, children will not follow that career. They will drop computing—ICT, computer science or whatever you want to call it—and they will never go into a career in STEM. That is why only 17% of the IT workforce in the UK is represented by females.
Dr Mathias
You would fully support Greenlight for girls, which has been to Parliament; they go round the world exciting girls—exactly the names you were talking about—and inspiring them in all the STEM subjects.
Sheila Flavell
Absolutely. They are 46% of the workforce, and we need them out there working in IT, which is a hugely growing area—the digital revolution.
Dr Mathias
What do you think about connecting the STEM subjects with the arts? Like other science people here, I think that ultimately science is creative, but what is your opinion?
Sheila Flavell
Yes, yes and yes. Computer science is a turn-off for girls. Why is such a small percentage of girls doing computer science at GCSE? Why is an even lower percentage of girls studying computer science at university? Because it is deemed to be engineering; it is boring and techie, and in the main it is not for girls. The Government will say that the ICT course was never designed for girls, nor was computer science designed for men, but the perception is out there. If you ask a young person to draw a typical IT worker, they will probably draw a geeky fellow with glasses and spiky red hair. To get back to your question, we need girls to be turned on by IT. Girls are turned on by data, big data, business analysis, web design and digital marketing, and a lot of those roles require artistic skills. Art and science need to come together more formally and in a more structured way.
Amy Solder
Nesta would argue that the combination of technical and creative skills is important for future jobs, but we would also argue that there is lack of evidence about the take-up of STEM in UK secondary schools. There will be greater automation of jobs. Creative jobs are less likely to be automated in the future, so it is important to have technical and creative skills together. We encourage the use of computing in, say, an art class or whatever, and combinations and interdisciplinary activities. However, there is lack of evidence about how students take STEM subjects. By that, I mean are they taking maths and science as well as art or design? There is less evidence about those combinations of GCSEs. At the moment Nesta is conducting research to look at the variation in take-up of STEM in secondary schools in both England and Scotland and, crucially, to examine whether take-up of STEM varies by student characteristics, such as gender and ethnicity. There is work to be done; the evidence is not necessarily there.
Dr Mathias
We have not got it yet. That is very helpful.
Simon Humphreys
I sit here having spent half my life as an arts graduate, a musician and composer, on which I still work, and a teacher of computer science. I have no hesitation in saying that I fundamentally believe that the craft of programming is the most creative activity that a student can undertake—more than composing a symphony.
Dr Mathias
Or perhaps on a par with it.
Simon Humphreys
There are certainly different skill elements, but I would quite happily argue internally with myself about which is the more creative. Is it composing a symphony or solving a problem?
Dr Mathias
We should do an MRI on you and map it.
Simon Humphreys
I would also refer the panel to the Next Gen report that came out, I think, in 2011. It looked at the visual effects industry and the games industry—that whole area. One of its two core recommendations—it made several—was that computer science should be in the school curriculum, but also that art and computer science should be in the English baccalaureate. When you think of the games industry, they are not looking for computer scientists. Well, maybe they are, but they are also looking for story-tellers, animators, artists and physicists. They are looking for a wide skillset embodied in very versatile people. We have inherited a situation over the years where certainly in secondary schools our subjects are siloed. Over the next however many generations, we need to begin breaking down those silos and stop talking about people as musicians, geographers or historians. We need skills and knowledge from all those areas that we bring into our modern-day workplace.
Derek Thomas
My question is primarily about how we get the education system to meet the demands of industry and the digital skills gap, and you have kind of addressed that. Can you think of ways that the education system can do more to equip young people for the digital economy, other than what you have already said?
Amy Solder
I have nothing directly to add.
Simon Humphreys
That is a very broad question. There is a tension. As a former teacher, the notion that I was necessarily preparing the children in my classroom for the workplace was several steps removed from the day-to-day needs. Clearly, that is an inevitable result of a high-quality education system, but certainly as a music teacher I did not necessarily believe that I was training my children to become active participants in the music industry. I always felt a very similar thing as a computer science teacher. I never had the view that I was preparing my students as a stepping stone towards participating in the computer science or IT industry. That was the role of the whole school. All of us collectively as an organism that is an educational establishment, such as a school, are preparing those children and students to become better informed, equipped and skilled to take on the challenges of industry.
Sheila Flavell
We have to get the kids at a very young age. If we do not get them by 12, we are not going to get them, because they are turned off by computer science at that time. I do not work in a school and I do not know too much about what goes on in schools, but I was extremely worried by what I heard in the previous session about the lack of funding and in particular the lack of skills—more than the lack of funding—that school teachers have. School teachers have a core job and IT sits at the side of that, so it is as well as, and they are spending their spare time on school sport. I did not get the feeling or comfort that IT was taken seriously, and that was extremely worrying. Schools need to pay attention to what is being said about dropping the ICT course. We do not have to have just a computer science GCSE. Why is there not a digital communications GCSE, something a bit more funky and sexy, that will turn people on and motivate them to want to learn ICT? Employers also have a huge responsibility. I do not think Government should support employers; they should spearhead it at the front end and create a structure, because if we do not get kids into IT, ultimately employers and the economy will suffer. Barclays, who came before the Committee on 12 January, have launched their digital eagles programme, which is absolutely fantastic. They have 20 volunteers out there in branches working with customers and staff, but I liken it a bit to using a feather duster to mop up an earthquake. I applaud what they are doing, but it will need a lot more than just Barclays. There is a call for action from employers to work with educational establishments to make sure there is a funnel whereby we get kids to learn the right thing to encourage them to go to the next level of education and ultimately have a career in technology.
Amy Solder
Industry has a big role to play in helping to support young people or education. We argue that there is a great role for volunteers particularly from the tech industry as well as from outside it. The techUK white paper report “We are just not doing enough” estimates that currently fewer than 1% of tech industry employees volunteer. That is incredibly low. It would help those companies as well if they supported a developing workforce. There are examples where industry is doing things, such as Barclays digital eagles. BT supported Barefoot Computing, and Google has a partnership with Code Club Pro. Some organisations are playing a more strategic role and supporting this agenda, but industry can probably play a greater role in terms of volunteers and support for the sector.
Chair
Ms Solder, can you tell us what impact you think Nesta’s initiative Next Gen has had in schools? Has it encouraged people into careers in the gaming industry or into more creative jobs?
Amy Solder
I was not part of the Next Gen review. I can talk about the education policy side, but I will have to give supplementary evidence to the Committee about the other points because one of my colleagues leads on that work. In terms of reforms, we are delighted that computing is part of the curriculum, and that it is being taken on board and goes across all schools in England. It is already in Scotland, as one member said, as of 2010. We hope that it will also be integrated in Wales as they look at their curriculum review. On the other points about talent development, I will have to come back to the Committee.
Chair
As a more general question, do you think that children learn from getting involved in gaming? Is it helpful, destructive or neither of those things? As a parent I have to say I found it destructive.
Amy Solder
I would talk personally about young people making games and about the role of a creative individual. We talked earlier about science and technology, arts and STEM, and moving them together. There is an enormous amount you can do to motivate and encourage children by developing their own games. There are different competitions set up across the country. Manchester University runs something called Animation 16, Abertay University runs something for graduates on game design, and BAFTA has a young games design award. Lots of different things are happening with universities. I would focus more on the aspect that the creation of games is useful to young people rather than the playing of games, which is a different subset on which, in my current role, I would not be able to answer correctly.
Sheila Flavell
Learning should be fun. I watch children from the age of two playing games and learning how to use a tablet or an iPad through gaming. I have watched kids study for GCSE and do revision and use games sensibly. Nowadays there are parental controls you can apply, but I can see where it crosses the line and becomes a distraction. If I may go back to a previous question, you asked me how many people were pursuing a career in computer science. I have the answer.
Chair
You have inspiration.
Sheila Flavell
In 2014-15 in the UK there were 63,470 undergraduates enrolled, of whom 9,585 were female and 53,870 were male; 15 did not specify gender. At postgraduate level 11,800 are currently enrolled in a computer science degree.
Chair
Thank you. That is valuable, and it will save you writing to us. We have talked about designing games, as opposed to playing them, being helpful in fostering creativity. How else can students be encouraged to experiment and develop creative talents in computer technology and IT?
Amy Solder
I can speak from the informal sector side rather than within the curriculum. Nesta has spent a lot of time either funding or working with organisations that are trying to support young people’s computing skills, but with a creative outlook. Often, that has been with animations, games and developing an app to solve a problem, but the thing that holds them all together is having a purpose behind it. Many of those activities result from trying to create something or solve a problem; it is not just for technology’s sake. I would argue for the importance of developing skills while making something in the real world.
Simon Humphreys
I would agree. It is making the problems matter to individual students in the classroom. Then they will be more motivated to find out what the answers are.
Dr Mathias
I love your idea about getting more volunteers from the tech industry. There have been amazing results with literacy volunteers, so I can see how that could take off. Do you know what work schools are doing with industry bodies to provide mentors for pupils and/or teachers?
Simon Humphreys
We have been directly involved in a number of projects. One was entitled the Barefoot Computing project. Soon after the programme of study for computing was published there was concern among many primary school teachers: “I’m not sure I understand the words on this page; I’d like somebody to come and explain them to me.” Through the Barefoot project, funded by the DFE, we ran over 900 workshops in primary schools all over the country. The people who actually went in and ran those workshops were local IT professionals from GE Healthcare, BT, the retail sector and the banking sector. We said to anybody we could find, “Please go and run a workshop.” We trained them so they understood what the constraints were within the classroom. That was very powerful, and some of that relationship is ongoing. Similarly, Amy mentioned the Code Club programme. A significant number of those after-school programming clubs are often run by local parents of the school, but they tend to be people from the local IT sector, or for whom IT is their job. The children see them as mentors and role models. I agree it would be lovely if there were more women doing that. I probably should not say that, because I do not know what the numbers are, but it would be good if there were lots taking on those particular activities.
Dr Mathias
Do you think that is growing?
Simon Humphreys
I do not work for Code Club so I do not know, but I believe they are now part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation and within that there would be a great deal more growth.
Dr Mathias
Do the others agree, or do you have anything to add?
Amy Solder
The STEMNET ambassadors national programme is looking at professionals in STEM who will go into schools and often give careers advice. Those are one-off volunteering opportunities. They have also developed something called TechFuture ambassadors who look particularly at the tech industry. A nice joined-up approach is the fact that STEMNET will do your DBS checks for going into schools. Code Club runs its volunteers through STEMNET’s DBS checking. Therefore, you are collecting more volunteers who could be used for something like STEMNET and going into schools. That is a nice example of some cross-overs between different initiatives.
Dr Mathias
Does every school have access?
Amy Solder
Every school has access to a STEMNET ambassador and every school can join up for Code Club. You have to find a volunteer, or they try to match volunteers to your particular area. It could be that you are a school but you cannot find a local volunteer; it could be that you have some enthusiastic parents or amateurs and maybe they take it on rather than a tech professional, and they will learn a little bit before the young people. Tech professionals are part of the answer, but parents are also part of it. Hobbyists and people interested in this area are also part of the solution in working with young people to develop their skills.
Dr Mathias
Could we find out the percentage of schools where this is already happening?
Amy Solder
Yes. I have some figures for Code Club, but we could provide others that are more up to date.
Dr Mathias
Great. Would you agree?
Sheila Flavell
Yes. Code clubs are on the increase. We are very involved with code clubs, STEMNET, hackathon and lots and lots of other groups. At FDM we have advantage sessions where we invite along not just students but their parents. We do that for the reason I stated earlier, which is that parents will influence their children and see for themselves that a career in technology is something to be embraced.
Dr Mathias
Is that available to all schools?
Sheila Flavell
Yes.
Dr Mathias
You can tell us the number who have taken it up.
Sheila Flavell
I do not have that.
Dr Mathias
But we could ask.
Sheila Flavell
Yes. It is something we do as a matter of course.
Derek Thomas
What can further education colleges do better to support students to adopt and develop digital skills? You are picking them up when they have gone through primary and secondary school. Is it too late when they go into colleges, or is there still an opportunity to get them to fill the digital skills gap?
Sheila Flavell
There is always an opportunity. It is a bit more challenging to hook them in if they had a poor experience earlier. I am sure you have had a poor experience at some point in your skill career. It puts you off that subject going forward. I will give an example of what we do to hook those candidates in. I have three daughters, and they all work in tech. They are business analysts for international banks through our organisation, but they never studied tech at school or university. They studied sociology, economics and business. They came in through a very soft route; they came via the business route into business, and we then slowly and softly introduced them to tech, and out they went having learned coding and a number of other technical skills—SQL, VB and suchlike. They are now working very competently in major banking institutions, along with thousands of other girls who have done the same. There is not one way to capture those candidates. There are many ways to skin a cat.
Amy Solder
We have not worked directly with further education.
Simon Humphreys
I have nothing to add to that comment.
Derek Thomas
Does the apprenticeship levy introduced in the spending review, or autumn budget, give enough flexibility to allow tech companies to invest in nurturing talent? You may not have given it any thought. Basically, there is now a levy on big businesses.
Sheila Flavell
It is a cost to the employer.
Derek Thomas
That is right. Does that help or hinder them in developing talent? Does it take resources away, or could it?
Sheila Flavell
I do not know a huge amount about the apprenticeship levy, but what I do know is that a lot of organisations are not geared up for developing their workforce. They outsource training. Unlike back in the day, when big companies had big training departments, that does not seem to be the case now. Having to pay to develop your apprentices may be a little less appealing, but it is necessary to supplement the digital workforce. Only this afternoon I looked at the growing numbers in the digital space of data analysts or digital marketeers. It has gone from zero to thousands in just a few years. I do not think companies have too much choice at the moment.
Derek Thomas
Do you have anything to add?
Simon Humphreys
I have nothing to add.
Derek Thomas
Is there a strong demand for STEM degree apprenticeships? What can we do to encourage youngsters and training colleges to provide STEM apprenticeships for businesses?
Simon Humphreys
I do not feel qualified to answer that.
Amy Solder
I am afraid I do not either.
Sheila Flavell
I think we have answered it, haven’t we? What are we doing to encourage more people into STEM? Again, I use a personal example. This morning I asked the question: how many programmers do we have working for us at the moment? We have circa 500 programmers. Our model is that after two years we allow our staff to work for the institutions in which we place them, so 70% of those candidates after two years with us will migrate to become permanent members of staff of those organisations. We are continually having to replenish our work base, hence it is only 500. None the less, it is challenging to get young people into the development space, especially females. It is much easier to get graduates to work as testers. I also asked the question: where do we get the greatest demand from our 200 clients, who are huge institutions, including central Government? What is it they are looking for at the moment? It is test analysts, business analysts, PMO and data analysts. Finding those candidates is not a challenge because the level of expertise required is not as great as for a coder. Finding people with good coding skills is proving to be the challenge, not just for us but industrywide.
Derek Thomas
That might explain why the Government have moved away from ICT to the coding element.
Sheila Flavell
Most likely.
Derek Thomas
We might have stumbled across the answer without realising it.
Sheila Flavell
It does not solve the gender question.
Derek Thomas
I understand that.
Simon Humphreys
Sheila unpacked that. At the moment it is a hope that, because computer science is now taught in our primary schools, some of these fundamental foundational concepts and understanding of our digital world will be more firmly embedded in the hearts and minds of young people, for whom it just becomes natural. It is one of the aspects to celebrate in the change of the curriculum, and interestingly at the moment the rest of the world is gazing at us to see how successful we might be.
Derek Thomas
That is very good.
Chair
If you had the Prime Minister here and wanted to tell him about one policy you would like him to pursue to close the digital divide, what would it be?
Sheila Flavell
I would like him to concentrate on educating teachers. If we do not capture at that level—at foundation level—we are not getting a pipeline.
Chair
Amy Solder.
Amy Solder
Perhaps you could ask Simon first and I will come back to you.
Chair
Have a think.
Simon Humphreys
The challenge that the new curriculum has presented cannot be underestimated. We are introducing a brand new subject in the school curriculum, fundamentally computer science labelled as computing. That is a long haul. The key people in that process will be the teachers. It is absolutely vital that we ensure they feel sufficiently equipped and confident to teach the new subject. Many will lack the required subject knowledge and pedagogical knowledge they need to teach the subject, so highest on the agenda should be: what can we do to support that workforce as best we can? The previous panel made a point about accreditation and seemed to be generally in agreement on that. We could put in place a benchmarking standard that said that over the next five to 10 years we would like to see all our teachers of computing having evidenced their knowledge and approach. That can be done with a relatively low-cost, light touch approach to teachers, but they need access and time within their timetable from their head teachers and governing bodies to give them the space to learn.
Amy Solder
I would argue for not forgetting the work that happens outside the school, by which I mean informal work and parents. We can learn lessons from the BBC’s micro project 30 years ago. That was a campaign in the home as well as in school. As we go forward, a lot can be learned from a programme as broad and ambitious as that one was.
Chair
Thank you for spending time with us this afternoon and giving us very valuable evidence. We may wish to write to you if any more questions occur to us, but thank you very much. Oral evidence: Digital skills gap, HC 740 24