A few weeks ago, I received an email from a whistleblower.

In it, the author warned that teachers and pupils across Scotland were about to find that they could no longer download and install Microsoft Office software such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Furthermore, all currently installed software would seen stop working entirely. They also pointed out that those who need to use Microsoft Access would be affected because the alternative, online systems do not include that application.

They added that this information had only been released in the weeks before the school holidays, and that large numbers of teachers and pupils were probably completely unaware of what was going on.

I soon found a blog post on Glow – Scotland’s digital learning platform – not just confirming the information I’d been given, but also raising additional concerns. You can read it here.

Basically, all staff and pupils in Scotland, through their Glow account, have access to Microsoft Office online tools, but have also been able to download the software and use it offline if they wish, even on personal devices. This was possible because of an A1 Plus licence – but that service (which has until now been provided for free, and was always temporary in nature) is about to be withdrawn by Microsoft.

This means that Scottish users will revert to an A1 licence, which does not allow software to be downloaded and used offline.

And that is a bit of a problem, because not everyone has internet access at home. Some families can’t afford it, and others live in places with poor or near-non-existent service – they really need to be able to download material where possible. To make matters worse, the Scottish Government has, thus far, completely failed to honour a promise to give every single child in Scotland a new device and a free internet connection.

But then things got even more complicated, because the Glow post detailing the change leaves open the possibility that in-school devices will also be affected by this change.

People with a lot of experience in the sector told me that, as far as they knew, councils were supposed to have their own arrangements for in-school devices, and shouldn’t have been relying on the Glow accounts for this – but that some might have been doing just that.

If this were true, then they would be facing a huge headache when schools returned and staff and pupils found desktop software no longer worked. The problem would be magnified considerably in schools with poor internet connections.

A bit more digging revealed that some councils had been engaging with staff about the upcoming change in licence conditions. Perth and Kinross Council, for example, was warned that Admin & IT courses – including Higher and National 5 – could not be delivered using only the online versions of Office, because the browser-based app do not offer full functionality. The council responded by seeking an arrangement with Microsoft, but couldn’t tell me how much it was going to cost. My understanding is that other councils are also looking at their existing arrangements and may have to pay to secure continued access to important software.

It sounds like all of this has come out of nowhere, but that’s not the case. Microsoft announced this change a year ago, and the government told me it has been engaging with councils since then. And yet here we are, in the middle of summer, trying to figure out what on earth is going on.

The government, when responding to our reporting on this problem, has framed the issue as a “global change” by Microsoft. That is true – but it’s not the whole truth.

Yes, the A1 Plus licence is being withdrawn, but there are others. In Wales, for example, a national A3 licence was secured back in 2019, and at a considerable discount. My understanding is that this was considered for Scotland, but rejected. The government claims that the situations in Scotland and Wales are too different for comparison, and that the Welsh system will be used by all schools whereas Glow is “designed to enable local authority autonomy,” but that doesn’t really offer much genuine clarity.

As things stand, it looks as though the government has decided that there will no longer be national provision of access to full Microsoft Office software, including offline versions. If that is the case then they should say so clearly, because there is a major discussion to be had about the subsequent risks of unequal access.

An IT postcode lottery was one thing twenty years ago, but it’s 2024 and the effective and equitable use of digital technology is no longer an extra: it has to be a fundamental.