58% of charities lack web site and social media skills

ACCORDING to the latest UK Business Digital Index, over a million (23%) small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) still lack basic digital skills. The Index from Lloyds Bank, in association with Accenture and digital skills charity Go ON UK, measures and tracks the level of digital ability among SMEs and charities.

An overall rise in the UK Index score suggests a slow but positive shift towards small to medium sized enterprises becoming more digitally active. However there are still over a million SMEs (23%) that lack basic digital skills.

This is even more significant in the charity sector where 58% of charities don’t have the necessary skills, an increase of 3% from 2014. Having basic digital skills includes activities such as running a website, using e-commerce or maintaining a social media presence.

The charities at the lowest end of the spectrum also reported an increase in doubts as to how websites (78%) or social media (83%) could help increase their funding.

Challenges also remain around the perceived benefits of being digital, with one-quarter of all organisations believing digital is irrelevant’ to them while more worryingly a similar number (27%) still believe that they have already done everything they can to embrace the digital economy.