The Scottish Government has missed its first broadband target, new independent figures reveal today.
Despite repeatedly promising Scotland was ‘on track’ to meet the target of 95% of properties having access to superfast broadband by the end of 2017, the latest figures show 93.4% of properties have access to a superfast connection in Scotland, compared to 95.5% in England and a UK wide figure of 95%.
The failure calls into question the SNP’s ability to roll out superfast broadband to the rest of Scotland.
The figures for the Scottish Borders are even worse, with only 82% of properties having access to a superfast connection.
It also appears that the Scottish Government have quietly pushed back their superfast broadband target by 3 months and are now only committing to providing superfast broadband to “around 95%” of Scotland.
The change in the target has been updated on the Digital Scotland website, the Scottish Government agency tasked with the delivery of broadband improvements, but has not been officially announced by the Scottish Government.
Just a week ago, Scottish Government Ministers were still claiming that they were on track to meet the 95% target by the end of 2017.
The news comes after it was revealed in Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee last week that many properties who are included in the statistics as having access to superfast broadband are unable to get a decent connection because they are too far away from a cabinet.
Local MP John Lamont has said the news was “deeply embarrassing” for the Scottish Government who have once again fallen behind the rest of the UK in the race to connect the nation.
John Lamont MP said: “These independent figures are deeply embarrassing for the Scottish Government who just last week were still boasting that they would meet their broadband target.
“Unfortunately, it is all too common for the SNP to set these ambitious targets only to fail to actually deliver on them.
“What makes this worse is that the SNP Government look like they have tried to quietly move the goalposts, hoping no one will notice.
“While the UK as a whole has managed to make progress, in Scotland we are still lagging too far behind and we also know that many properties which are meant to be connected, still can’t get superfast broadband.
“The Borders is particularly struggling, with nearly 1 in 5 properties still without a decent service. This is simply not good enough and the SNP’s failure to deliver is holding Scottish businesses back and is unfair for consumers.”
The figures quoted above are for properties with access to a superfast connection of more than 24 Mbps.
Home nations figures can be found here: https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/browse
UK wide figures can be found here: https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/uk
The Scottish Government have repeatedly said they are committed to “extending superfast broadband programme to 95% of homes and premises by the end of 2017.” See: https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/keith-brown-superfast-broadband-f…
However, the Digital Scotland website now states that the target is “around 95%” by the end of March 2018: