Reconsidering government digital strategies within the context of digital inequalities: the case of the UK Digital Strategy

The paper addresses whether and to what extent the UK government's 2022 Digital Strategy, framed as a vehicle for productivity, innovation and evidence-based decision-making, accounts for digital inequalities. While digitalisation promises improved efficiency, transparency, and decision legitimacy, rapid digital transformation has exacerbated structural inequalities, particularly for vulnerable groups such as older adults and unpaid caregivers. The authors argue that neoliberal, customer-centric governance undermines the government's traditional role in delivering impartial public services and conflicts with the social contract, especially amid rising digital poverty. The study aims to critically analyse the ideological underpinnings of the 2022 UK Digital Strategy using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to uncover contradictions between policy rhetoric (e.g., 'no one left behind') and persistent digital exclusion (e.g., c.19 million people digitally excluded). The work focuses on the policy document's discourse, not its implementation, to expose potential misalignments between growth/innovation priorities and digital inequality considerations.

The background situates public sector digitalisation within neoliberal policy-making. Prior research highlights benefits of digitalisation for productivity, transparency and service delivery, but also unintended harms: power asymmetries inscribed in technologies, rigid systems worsening outcomes, and the marginalisation of minoritised groups. Drawing on the duality of technology and the political economy of IT, the authors note that public sector digital transformation often imports business logics, shifting power from state to market and privileging private actors in policy formation. The review synthesises literature on digital inequalities (exclusion/divide/poverty) as unequal access and capabilities shaped by finance, infrastructure, disability, skills, and attitudes, operating along a continuum from deep exclusion to deep inclusion. Evidence shows digitalisation can deepen inequalities, especially post cost-of-living crisis, compounding offline disadvantages. Governments and third sector actors have attempted mitigation, motivated both by inclusion and market-efficiency rationales. The UK context is characterised by longstanding neoliberalism, austerity since 2008 with welfare cuts, and post-Brexit widening inequalities. Against this backdrop, the 2017 and 2022 UK Digital Strategies promise global competitiveness and inclusion, yet digital exclusion remains high, indicating a policy-reality gap that warrants discursive scrutiny.

Design: Qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the 2022 UK Digital Strategy policy paper. Theoretical stance: Social constructionism (language shapes social reality) and CDA (Fairclough), informed by Gramsci's hegemony. Digital inequalities serve as the contextual backdrop for interpretation. Analytical approach: Following Fairclough's four stages:

1. Description: Multiple close readings; micro-level textual analysis in NVivo focusing on grammar, lexicon, metaphors, modality (e.g., will+infinitive), voice, tense, and rhetorical devices to identify discursive patterns and power constructions.
2. Interpretation: Audience-oriented reading to infer meanings, interests, and implied expertise/authority; macro-coding; engagement with relevant scholarship.
3. Explanation: Contextualisation within broader socio-political structures and policy ecosystem; triangulation with auxiliary policy documents and reports to relate textual features to wider power relations and ideologies.
4. Evaluation/Review: Iterative refinement, chain-of-evidence development, and selection of exemplar excerpts; triangulation via consultation between authors and review by two external CDA experts (investigator triangulation) to enhance credibility. Data source: UK Digital Strategy (2022) policy paper (publicly available). No human participants; no ethics required.

• The analysis reveals a distinctly neoliberal discursive landscape structured around four themes:

1. Prioritisation and legitimisation of market interests: The Strategy constructs capital infusion into the private tech sector as common sense and a national imperative, normalising business-friendly measures (e.g., R&D tax reliefs; emphasis on 'deep pools of capital' and an 'excellent funding ecosystem'). Citizens are positioned largely through market lenses rather than as rights-bearing public service recipients.
2. Prioritisation and hegemony of productivity: Productivity and innovation are framed as unquestioned goods that justify digitalisation and pro-competition regimes, equating business productivity with collective welfare (e.g., Transport for London data example). Inclusion rhetoric is frequently tethered to productivity gains.
3. Ideological hegemony of neoliberal positivism: Strong STEM-centrism positions high-performance computing, AI, and data as engines of economic value, legitimising investments (e.g., Hartree Centre) and curricular prioritisation of computer science and STEM pathways (e.g., Skills Bootcamps) primarily to meet market needs.
4. Weaponisation of equality and inclusion to promote digitalisation: Inclusion is instrumentalised to expand labour supply and business participation (e.g., northern SME funds; targeted upskilling for refugees/disadvantaged) while conditions (testing/suitability) and market-first benefits are foregrounded; structural barriers to digital inclusion are largely absent.

• Citizens are interpellated as national subjects and as digital workers whose value is tied to employability and contribution to the digital economy.
• Notable statistics referenced in the discourse context: c.19 million people in the UK considered digitally excluded (Deloitte, 2023); c.25% (approx. 16 million) likely struggle with everyday online interactions (Lloyds Bank, 2023); government-commissioned estimates suggest the approach could add £41.5 billion GVA by 2025 and create 678,000 jobs.

Findings suggest that the 2022 UK Digital Strategy discursively advances a market-centric, neoliberal vision of digital governance. Technology is mobilised to secure competitiveness and productivity, with national prosperity used to justify further digitalisation and private sector support. Citizens are primarily addressed as workers and consumers, expected to upskill to meet market demands rather than supported as rights-bearing users of public services. Equality and inclusion are invoked to legitimise investments and expand labour pipelines, but structural determinants of digital inequality (e.g., infrastructure, socioeconomics, place-based exclusion) are under-addressed. The emphasis on productivity and STEM-oriented 'positivism' consolidates hegemony around quantifiable, marketable outcomes, sidelining broader social benefits and public service mandates. This discursive prioritisation risks deepening digital inequalities and alienation through precarious, market-driven work modalities, reframing inclusion as conditional employability rather than equitable access. The Strategy's framing appears performative on inclusivity while materially privileging corporate interests, potentially undermining the welfare function of the state and contradicting 'no one left behind' commitments.

The study contributes a critical interrogation of a national digital strategy, showing how governmental discourse can reproduce hegemonic neoliberal values that privilege market logics over citizen-centric public service principles amid pervasive digital inequalities. By applying CDA, the authors reveal how claims of inclusion, productivity, and innovation act as ideological cover for consolidating capital and power, while structural causes of digital exclusion remain marginalised. The analysis underscores the need to reorient digital policy toward addressing root causes of digital inequality and safeguarding the social contract. Future research should compare the Digital Strategy with its operationalisation across departments (e.g., sourcing and procurement practices), conduct longitudinal studies to trace welfare and productivity impacts, and analyse subsequent strategies (e.g., under the new government) for continuity or change in ideological framing and priorities.

The study analyses a single policy document (the 2022 UK Digital Strategy) using CDA, which aims for depth of ideological critique rather than statistical generalisation. While triangulated with literature and auxiliary policy sources and reviewed by external CDA experts, findings are context-specific to the document and period. The work does not evaluate on-the-ground implementation or causal impacts; rather, it uncovers discursive constructions and hegemonic framings.