§ Mr. David ShawTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the work his Department has carried out in the last 12 months in making information about his Department available to the public via the Government world wide web server known as ww.open.gov.uk and his plans and policies to make additional and new information available electronically on the server in the next 12 months. [34682]
§ Sir John WheelerNorthern Ireland departments were given a "home page" on the CCTA world wide web server—open.gov.uk—in February this year; this provided some general information on Northern Ireland as well as information on the citizens charter and a copy of the joint framework document.
In early June, the Department of Finance and Personnel established a WWW server of its own—address: nics.gov.uk—to provide an electronic publishing service for Northern Ireland departments and their associated bodies. There is an automatic pointer from the CCTA menu to the NI server.
An interdepartmental steering group has been established to develop and co-ordinate the use of this new facility and of information super-highways generally. The aim will be to make maximum use of the potential of information super-highways to make information available to the public and to meet the business needs of Northern Ireland departments.