Internet

HC Deb 26 June 1997 vol 296 cc624-5W

Mr. Sheerman

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what use she plans to make of the Internet to make government more open. [5096]

Mr. Murphy

Business Development Service (BDS) of the Department of Finance and Personnel provides an Internet publishing service for NI government information.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will use the BDS Web Publishing service to augment the significant base of information which already exists on the Northern Ireland Civil Service Web Server.

Under the Deregulation Initiative, more than 250 forms have been made available to the public for printing, completion and submission to NICS Departments and Agencies.

The NICS World Wide Web service holds over 12,000 pages of Government information on topics as diverse as updates in progress in the Northern Ireland Multi-Party talks to a database of commercial property valuations. Currently, the number of accesses per month to the NI Government Web Service exceeds 450,000.

BDS has recently established a secure connection that will facilitate Internet e-mail messaging to all NI public servants.

The Web information is accessible at: http://www.nics.gov.uk using any publicly available web browsing software.