The digital infrastructure will improve – CBI Survey

A CBI survey of 727 UK businesses has found that 59% felt confident that digital infrastructure (broadband etc.) would improve.

The survey asked a broad spectrum of businesses a series of questions on how they thought this government might improve the country’s infrastructure and we have looked at the answers to the questions pertaining to our area of particular interest – the digital landscape.

The key findings are:

• Improving the speed and reliability of connections is the top digital priority for the Government, with 98% of firms citing this as critical or important.
• This is matched by the need to strengthen cyber resilience (98%)
• Over two thirds of firms (68%) are not (or not at all) confident in the UK’s current cyber security strategy
• After access to skills and talent from the EU (91%), the free flow of data (90%) and the digital single market (88%) are seen as the most important issues to address in forging a new relationship with the EU
• Digital bucks the trend when it comes to confidence in improvements, with a majority of firms (59%) feeling confident that digital infrastructure will improve.
• Almost three quarters (74%) doubt infrastructure in general will improve over this Parliament.

The rollout “superfast broadband” via the Broadband Delivery UK programme has seen large amounts of public money invested, together with the more recent attempts to foster a new generation of ultrafast “full fibre” (FTTP/H) services.

The full CBI Survey report is available here www.cbi.org.uk/news