Electronic Government (Hansard, 1 November 2000)

§ 14. Dr. Cable
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if she will make a statement on Britain's progress in developing electronic Government. [133650]

§ Mr. Ian McCartney
The Government continue to make strong progress towards the Prime Minister's target that by 2005 all Government services should be available online.
We have a good story to tell: for central Government we have identified 451 services to the citizen and to business, and already one third of them are available online.
Things you can do online now include:

ordering and paying for a company's financial returns;

checking to see if you need hospital treatment;

find out if it is safe to visit foreign countries;

fill out a tax form;

the public can also keep up to date with what is happening in Parliament and contact the Ombudsman online;

employees and employers can interactively calculate pay rates and entitlements under the national minimum wage regulations with further interactive guides to employment law to follow.

Compared to other countries the figure is high, as is the volume and quality of the material available on the web.
Much more detail about Government service than I can give here may be found in the reports monitoring progress towards the targets for electronic service. These include details of the innovative approaches that Departments have planned for future services.
The spring 2000 report has been placed in the Libraries of the House. My Department is preparing the autumn 2000 monitoring report which I will also be placing in the Libraries of the House.

§ 21. Mr. Miller
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what progress has been made in the development of the Government secure intranet. [133657]

§ Mr. Ian McCartney
The Government Secure Intranet (GSI) continues to make steady progress.
Seventy-one organisations are now connected and some 90,000 staff have e-mail access.
The GSI has met its original objectives of providing a secure e-mail service for Government and of achieving a step change in the number of civil servants with internet access.
For example, a secure e-mail gateway has been developed between the GSI and the new Police National Network Extranet and is already being used for 524W collaborative policy drafting work between the DTI and DCMS sharing an intranet site for developing the Communications White Paper.

§ 27. Mr. Ian Bruce
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if she will make a statement on progress in introducing the electronic delivery of Government services. [133666]

§ Mr. Ian McCartney
The Government continue to make strong progress towards the Prime Minister's target that by 2005 all government services should be available on-line.
We have a good story to tell; for central Government we have identified 451 services to the citizen and to business and already one third of them are available on-line.
Things that can be done on-line now include:

ordering and paying for a company's financial returns;

checking to see if you need hospital treatment;

find out if it is safe to visit foreign countries;

fill out a tax form;

the public can also keep up to date with what is happening in Parliament and contact the Ombudsman on-line;

employees and employers can interactively calculate pay rates and entitlements under the national minimum wage regulations with further interactive guides to employment law to follow.

A comparison with other countries also shows that we are doing well, as the recent international benchmarking study showed. For example, although currently the number of two-way dealings that can be done on-line is low, at about 20 (but rising) compared to other countries the figure is high, as is the volume and quality of the material available on the web.