§ Mr. AtkinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement of progress on the introduction of information technologies to facilitate internal communications in his Department and the provision of information to the public concerning those areas for which he is responsible; and if he has any further plans to apply the newest technologies in these fields.
§ Mr. Peter BottomleyAn information technology steering committee oversees the cost effective development of the Department's information technology and communications strategies. The Department will continue to build on the existing uses of information technology and communications network, to expand the use of modern office facilities and to improve the provision of information to the public in areas such as statistics and driver and vehicle licensing.
496WRecent examples include the development of systems at the DVLC, Swansea to give staff ready access to central databases and thus enable them to deal better with inquiries from the general public about driving licences, vehicle registration documents, etc; in the statistical field, more extensive and rapid analyses of information have become possible and desktop publishing methods have reduced the time taken to publish results; similar improvements are being sought in the publication of research reports by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory, who are increasingly using video to illustrate the results of their work.