§ Mr. David ShawTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make it his policy to present to the House during the current Session of Parliament a report on the progress and future plans for development of the government worldwide web server "open.gov.UK".
Mr. Robert G. HughesI have asked CCTA, the Government Centre for Information Systems, to prepare a report on the progress and future plans for development of the government worldwide web server "open.gov.UK", in three months' time, and quarterly thereafter. This report will be placed in the Library of the House, and it will, of course, be available over the Internet via the CCTA Government information service.
The CCTA Government information service was launched in November 1994 as a pilot service to make Government information available over the Internet, and to provide a means for Departments to develop expertise in this sector. It has proved a tremendous success. Over 14 Departments and agencies have already made information available, and most others have plans to do so. On average, there are over 35,000 requests for information each week. This month we have added two additional pilot services, "G-NET" and "GMAIL", and further improvements are planned for the coming months.