Recommendation 11

The Department has yet to sign the gigabit infrastructure contracts with commercial suppliers under which it would provide public subsidy for them to build in areas that would otherwise not get coverage as they are less commercially viable.31 The dates by 22 Q 17, Virgin Media O2 bolsters future network with fibre upgrade plan - Virgin Media O2 23 Correspondence from Sarah Healey, Permanent Secretary, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, re broadband report, dated 22 October 2021 24 Qq 16, 28; Connected Nations Update: Summer 2021, 9 September 2021 page 3 25 Letter from Sarah Healey to PAC Chair Dame Meg Hillier Re: Improving Broadband, 23 November 2021 26 DRB0014 DCMS recall (Broadband), Gigaclear, November 4, p.1 27 Project Gigabit: Phase One Delivery Plan – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 28 Q 6–7 29 Q 31, known as GigaHubs; provide up to £110m infrastructure funding to public buildings in the ‘hardest to reach’ to improve services and incentivise broadband companies to build off these networks. 30 Q 6, 30, 60, 71, Correspondence from Sarah Healey, Permanent Secretary, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, re broadband report, dated 22 October 2021 31 DCMS, Project Gigabit Phase One Delivery Plan, March 2021, p. 6 and DCMS, Project Gigabit Delivery Plan Autumn Update, October 2021, p. 12 12 Delivering gigabit-capable broadband which the Department reports that it expects to sign gigabit infrastructure contracts have changed on several occasions. At our last evidence session in November 2020, the Department told us that it expected contracts to be operating in the last quarter of 2021.32 In the Department’s summer update on progress, this was changed to May 2022.33 In its Autumn update, this was changed again to between June and August 2022.34 We asked the Department if it was able to give us a guarantee about when new contracts would be signed for the hardest to reach areas. It was unable to give us any guarantees but told us it had published its lat