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<p>While responsibility for developing services for children is held by the Department
for Education, we recognise that it is essential for charities to be part of the digital
revolution. The government is committed to bringing together digital and civil society
to help tackle social challenges and develop services needed.</p><p>That is why DCMS
provided £1.6m of set up funding for the Catalyst, a programme which is incubated
by the Centre for Acceleration of Social Technology (CAST). The Catalyst brings together
a network of charities, digital design agencies and major funders with the shared
objective of establishing a digital support hub for the charity sector. The Catalyst
programme represents the first time the charity sector has had a dedicated, high-profile
coalition jointly funding and championing digital innovation in the charity sector
and continues to support charities to embed digital in their strategy, services and
culture.</p><p>Encouraging digital innovation has long been a priority in DCMS. For
example, in 2018 DCMS launched a £400,000 Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund to help
older and disabled people acquire digital skills. The aim of this fund was to help
ensure that ‘what works’ on digital inclusion is identified, replicated and scaled.
A full independent evaluation will be published soon to share learnings from this
fund.</p><p> </p>
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