We’ve always put a strong emphasis on measuring what we do, and we know some of the impact we have is pretty impressive. Recently, I mentioned one of our more impressive statistics, and it was nice to see the person I was talking to have a “wow” moment at this impact, so I thought it was something worth sharing more widely!

We know we’ve helped 1.2 million people to gain basic online skills since 2010, which is pretty amazing for a lot of reasons – it’s helped them get into work, learn more, save money and connect with friends and family. It’s also helped them to reach other outcomes – most notably, moving transactions with government from face-to-face or telephone channels to online ones. And this is where the ‘wow’ moment comes in. The cumulative saving of all of these people moving these transactions online over the last 46 months has resulted in a total saving to government of £232.5 million!

The person who said ‘wow’ when they heard this number asked how we’d figured this out, and as a details person, I think I’d have asked the same! So for those of you who are interested in seeing how we got to this figure, the workings are below.

Numbers this big can sometimes seem hard to get your head around, but the fact that over 50% of people are going on to do more complex tasks – like transacting with government online – shows the real value the UK online centres network is providing in supporting people to improve their skills.

We also know there are loads of other great outcomes around the impact getting online has as this is something we’re measuring all the time, 52 weeks a year. We see thousands of people moving from unemployment to employment, from poor health to better health and from no qualifications to gained their first qualifications, all thanks to the skills they’ve gained. This shows the huge impact we are having on individuals, at scale, across the country

The workings

Socitm has calculated that every time someone shifts their method of contact with government from a face-to-face transaction to an online transaction, the government saves £8.47, and from telephone to online, they save £2.68.

Our surveys tell us that between 46%/51% (46% from April 2010 – March 2012, and 51% from April 2012 to current) of our learners make that channel shift, and on average perform 3.8 contacts per month with government as a result. These transactions accumulate, as those who got online last month begin moving their transactions online, and those who got online in April 2010 are continuing to transact with government month-in, month-out online.

Therefore the savings achieved for learners we’ve helped since 1 April 2010 are £232.4m.