UK Gov Confirm Scotland to Get £450m for Gigabit Broadband Upgrade

The UK Government has finally revealed that Scotland’s share of the £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme will be an “estimated” £450m, although market engagement work is ongoing (i.e. getting feedback from suppliers) and has yet to reach the procurement stage – this was originally supposed to happen in the autumn.

At present nearly 74% of premises in Scotland can already access a gigabit-capable (1Gbps download) broadband ISP network (here). But this is expected to increase further as the Scottish Government progresses their existing £600m Reaching 100% (R100) project, which largely involves extending Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) coverage to another 114,000 premises in areas that lack access to “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) speeds by 2027/28. R100 has already covered 42,000 premises (here).

Ofcom recently predicted (here) that Scotland’s full fibre coverage would reach around 78-83% by May 2026, while gigabit-capable broadband (FTTP and Hybrid Fibre Coax / cable) would deliver 83-85% by that same date. Suffice to say that in terms of gigabit speeds, a gap will still be left for Scotland to fill once R100 completes.

According to the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, some 410,000 premises across Scotland may need support from public funding to help them gain access to a gigabit (1000Mbps) broadband service (here), which could rise if existing plans (inc. commercial builds) fall short. But equally, it may also shrink if those commercial plans are successful.

In any case, until now, we still didn’t know precisely how much funding Scotland would be allocated from Project Gigabit’s budget or whether it would be centrally managed by BDUK like the current procurements. The answer to these questions finally came in yesterday’s parliamentary debate on rural broadband (here).

Sir John Whittingdale, UK Minister for Digital Infrastructure, said:

“I want to touch on the position in Scotland, to respond to the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) — who I do not think is back with us yet — and put it on the record that, while R100 is administered by the Scottish Government, Project Gigabit, although funded from the UK Government, is delivered through the Scottish Government.

It has taken longer than we would have liked. However, I am in touch with my opposite number in the Scottish Government and can tell the House that, of the £5 billion that the Government are putting into Project Gigabit, an estimated £450 million is to go to the Scottish Government, and we currently have a market engagement exercise under way.”

Separately, the same debate revealed that the UK Gov had asked Ofcom to examine ways to improve estimates around mobile network coverage, which Sir John said “does not match people’s actual experience … We have raised it with Ofcom, and we very much wish to improve the accuracy of the existing statistics.” But there are practical and technical limitations that make accurately and cost effectively mapping real-world mobile coverage extremely challenging (you’d need a veritable army of on the ground testers to do it properly, scientifically).

The divisive issue of “telegraph poles” for full fibre delivery also came up in the debate. Sir John said: “I understand the frustration of people who may have existing broadband suppliers but then see another competitor wishing to install telegraph poles. We are talking to Ofcom and local authorities about that.” But solving this without disrupting existing rollouts will be extremely difficult, and the government were unable to improve related infrastructure sharing via the ATI Regulations when they tried in 2021 (here).

The rural broadband debate also touched on many of the usual talking points, such as the lack of effectiveness and awareness around the 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (the USO is due for review). The debate also touched on social tariffs, which seemed to indicate that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were looking to actively promote them to those on benefits.