Watchdog criticises government’s failed broadband projects

A fifth of the internet projects backed by Community Broadband Scotland have failed, a government spending watchdog has revealed.

Audit Scotland also claims the Scottish Government may have achieved its initial target to provide fibre broadband access to 95 per cent of premises, but its more recent ‘Reaching 100 per cent’ ambition ‘will be more difficult to realise’.

A new report from the Auditor General looks at public sector spending to reach areas not covered by commercial providers. Up to March 31 2018, £259 million had been paid to BT for broadband roll-out. Lower costs and higher take-up is expected to enable around 60,000 more premises to be reached than originally planned.

An Audit Scotland spokesperson explained: ‘People’s experience of broadband speeds is often lower than those claimed, depending on technology and the package chosen.

‘The Reaching 100 per cent programme says every home and business will have access to superfast broadband (speeds of 30 Mb/s or more) by the end of 2021.

‘The report also points out that Community Broadband Scotland (CBS) did not deliver on its anticipated benefits. CBS was set up to back local initiatives, but only 13 of the 63 it helped finance have proved successful. The report says lessons need to be learned from this.’

Attempts failed last year to save Mull’s ‘groundbreaking’ £1 million project to bring superfast broadband to 1,600 homes in Argyll’s remote blackspots after its contractor went bust.

The four-year-old scheme, hoping to bring superfast broadband to Mull, Iona, Lismore, Colonsay, Luing, Islay, Jura and the Craignish peninsula, was granted £988,000 from CBS, and had spent at least £700,000.

GigaPlus Argyll’s chosen contractor, AB Internet, went into administration in May, burdening it with eight masts on Mull it could not use, after only two houses were connected.