Monthly Reports

PRIME MINISTER

Report from the e-Minister and e-Envoy - 2nd April 2002

Introduction

This is our third monthly report on progress against the UK online strategy as set out in the UK online annual report published in December 2001. The strategy details how we are driving forward the programme of change to get individuals, businesses and Government online.

A detailed progress report on each of the commitments made in the Report was published on our website in February at www.e-envoy.gov.uk.   This shows that of the 113 commitments announced, 108 are on track, 5 completed, and none are behind schedule.

This month’s report focuses on four key issues: Broadband, Land Registration Act, e-Voting Technical Enablers, and the Knowledge Network

Broadband

Last month, BT announced its intention to cut wholesale DSL prices from £25 to £14.75 from the beginning of April. We are already beginning to see the positive impact this price reduction is having on the broadband market.

• Market prices: Following BT’s announcement, retailers have begun to announce their prices for the consumer.   The larger ISPs (such as Freeserve and BT Openworld) have announced prices of around £30pcm, with smaller players such as Freedom2Surf, Plusnet and Pipex, coming in at £22.50 to £25.  
• Consumer demand. There have been indications of a steep upturn in demand, with BT Openworld alone reporting that between 8,000 and 10,000 customers per week are subscribing to their broadband product.   A similar increase in demand can be expected across the market.  
• Forecasted subscription: Many believe that this announcement has the potential to bring about a step change in broadband take-up over the next few years.   BT has set a target of 1 million customers by June 2003. And Independent consultants estimate that if these price cuts are passed onto consumers, as expected, then in three years time broadband take-up figures will be twice as high as if they weren’t cut as aggressively.
• International Competitiveness: UK cable prices have always been amongst the cheapest in the OECD. And following BT’s price cut, the UK now has the second cheapest DSL prices in the G7 - behind only Canada. For both cable and DSL, we are beginning to see the same price leadership that the UK enjoys for narrowband services, for which we are amongst the cheapest in the world.

We are also continuing our work to stimulate the rollout of affordable broadband services throughout the country. Last week Douglas Alexander announced a wide range of projects - financed by the £30 million fund allocated by the Government in October last year - to help do this. The initiatives include a broadband town, wired up business parks, broadband links to schools, health-centres and libraries and trials of satellite and wireless technologies. These innovative projects have been designed to meet the individual needs of each region and to provide solutions for extending networks into areas considered commercially unattractive.

Land Registration Act

The Land Registration Act was passed on 26 February 2002.   The Act will replace the Land Registration Act of 1925.   It will modernise and clarify the law, and will simplify the processes for buying and selling land and for protecting rights over it.   It will also enable the potential for electronic conveyancing to be fully exploited.

The Land Registry is taking forward a programme of work to develop and deliver an electronic conveyancing system.  The aim is to introduce, over the next five to ten years, a radical overhaul of the conveyancing process in England and Wales.   The opportunity which technology provides will be used to re-engineer the process to provide the following benefits:

• a substantial reduction in the delays and anxieties for the citizen inherent in the present system – in particular the opportunity for gazumping and gazundering;
• savings in time and money for conveyancers and lenders, and thereby to citizens engaged in the buying and selling of property;
• reductions in the scope for fraud.

Key features of the re-engineered conveyancing system will be:

• a substantial reduction in the paper used, with conveyancing practitioners and mortgagees preparing and transmitting electronic deeds and documents, and having easy access to computerised property data on-line;
• greater transparency, particularly where chains of transactions occur; blockages in chains would be easily identified;
• instantaneous, simultaneous and automatic electronic settlement of payments due between all parties concerned in property transactions at exchange of contracts and completion, using real-time Electronic Funds Transfer;
• a closer link between the conveyancing and registration processes, removing in most cases the ‘registration gap’ – the period between completion of the transaction and registration of the new owner.

e-Voting Technical Enablers

Electronic voting entails the use of the Internet and other communiation technologies to simplify participation in elections to national Parliaments, devolved and regional assemblies, local government and European Parliament, as well as other elections under statutory control.   However, before we allow electronic voting in elections, we have to make sure we have the required technology in place.   The introduction of open standards for election systems is intended to enable election officials around the world to build upon existing infrastructure investments, to evolve their systems as new technologies emerge and to simplify the election process in a way that was never possible before.

The development of these open standards is being taken forward by the OASIS Election and Voter Services Technical Committee.   (OASIS is an international consortium focused on delivering open, internationally agreed standards for the exchange of data to support various business processes.)   The OeE Chairs this sub-Committee and this month have finalised the first version of these open standards.   The standards cover the basic election processes such as candidate nominations, voter registrations, production of election lists, recording of votes and declaring results.  

We are now publishing them for worldwide public consultation and looking at opportunities to test them in the local authority pilots in May.

Knowledge Network

The Knowledge Network continues to develop community applications to meet cross-Government business needs.

Electronic Library for Government (ELIB): Working together with the Committee of Departmental Librarians, a new electronic library for Government will be launched on 28 March. This follows a period of pilot running with FCO, DFES, DH and DWP. A formal launch will be made by Sir Richard Wilson at the end of May 2002.

HMT Public Spending Guidance (PSG): This previously paper-based publication, has been modernised and made more user friendly with easy web browser based access to GSI users. Now all departments can follow up-to-date expenditure guidance online.

Lord Macdonald will be speaking at the Lotus Global Government Forum on 15 April on the importance of Knowledge Enhanced Government.

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