Shailesh Vara, MP for North West Cambridgeshire, has welcomed the news that Cambridgeshire County Council’s bid to Government has secured funding of some £49,390 for a series of workshops and the development of a connection voucher scheme targeted at female entrepreneurs and women returning to work.

The Government Equalities Office has allocated a further £1.1 million to local authority programmes for the improvement of women’s digital literacy and this is in addition to the £75,000 awarded to Cambridgeshire in 2014, when the Women and Broadband Challenge Fund was established with £1.1 million of funding.

Broadband Delivery UK is working to provide superfast broadband to 90 per cent of the UK by 2016, and has £1 billion with which to do so. The combined funding, upwards of £124,000, allocated to Cambridgeshire by the Equalities Office will be devoted to helping women in the area to get as much as possible out of the strengthening of this infrastructure.

Mr Vara commented:

“I am delighted that the Council has succeeded in obtaining funding from Government in such a vital area. Lack of digital literacy should be no impediment to those who wish to return to work, and in the world of modern business and entrepreneurship we cannot afford to overlook the online element.

I would very much encourage those who are interested to contact the Council’s Connecting Cambridgeshire team for further details.”