§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the criteria are for evaluating his Department' s performance against its public service agreement target for 2002 of making the United Kingdom the best place in the world to trade electronically.[125924]
§ Mr. CabornThe PIU report, 'e-commerce@its.best.uk', set out a number of possible criteria for evaluating progress against the target of being the best place in the world to trade 661W electronically by 2002. The Office of the e-Envoy is working to establish more rigorously what these criteria should be and the results of this will be published in the autumn. In the meantime, the DTI continues to work towards a number of measurable targets related to trading online, namely that:
1.5 million small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) connected;1 million SMEs actually trading online;and the use of ICTs by micro and small businesses up with the best in the world.Progress against these targets is measured in the DTI's annual International Benchmarking Study. The year 2000 study will be published shortly.
§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the criteria are for evaluating his Department's performance against its public service agreement target for 2002 of improving the overall international ranking of the science and engineering base in terms of quality relevance and cost-effectiveness. [125920]
§ Mr. ByersThe criteria for relevance and cost effectiveness are, respectively;
the ranking of the UK against G7 and other countries in terms of HEI funding from non-Government sources;the ranking of the UK against G7 and other countries in terms of papers published per £1 million investment.