Recommendation 15

The National Audit Office’s report said that it had been difficult to assess the Superfast Programme’s performance because it lacked programme-specific measures against which to judge success. It explained that the Department’s coverage targets, for example, to reach 95% of UK premises with superfast broadband infrastructure by 2017, were not specific to the publicly-funded element within the Department’s control and could only be achieved in conjunction with industry-funded roll out.37 We reminded the Department of its target for the UK to be “the best in Europe” and pointed out that the 14% full-fibre coverage and 27% gigabit coverage reported by the National Audit Office put us below the European average.38 The Department said that latest coverage rates for full-fibre and gigabit-capable had increased and were now 17% and 30% respectively.39