§ Mr. AllenTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, if he will list the Internet electronic mail addresses of(a) his Department and (b) each Minister in his Department; and if he will make a statement on his Department's approach to the information super-highway. [17735]
§ Sir John WheelerIn line with the open Government code of practice published in April 1994, the Northern Ireland civil service will be developing a strategy for making information available to the public domain through electronic means, including the Internet. CCTA, the Government Centre for Information Systems, have established a "presence" on the Internet for UK Government and some information from Northern Ireland Departments has already been made available to the public using this service. For example, the business development service of the Department of Finance and Personnel arranged for the publication of the joint framework document, UK papers, on the CCTA server. Currently none of the Ministers or Northern Ireland Departments have official addresses on the Internet. However, a number of NICS officials have mail boxes which are accessed through CCTA GTNet service.