This report provides evidence about the impact of one-to-one coaching on people suffering from financial and digital exclusion and exclusion from the labour market. It draws on qualitative research with coaches and participants from the New Horizons coaching programme. New Horizons is managed by CHS Group and delivered by various partner organisations across Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and West Norfolk.

It places its evidence in the context of the existing literature about poverty and exclusion, which shows that poverty, deprivation and social exclusion all tend to go hand in hand, creating a vicious circle of hardship which is hard to break. The research shows that we need to consider digital exclusion as part of the downward cycle of deprivation, which is much more than just a problem of very low (or no) income or unemployment.