Monthly Reports

PRIME MINISTER

Report from the e-Minister and e-Envoy - 7^th October 2002

Introduction

This is the eighth monthly progress report since the publication of our UK online strategy in December 2001. As usual, a detailed progress report on each of the commitments made then is published on our website (www.e-envoy.gov.uk). It shows that of the 113 commitments announced, 94 are on track, 15 are completed, and 4 are behind schedule. Next month we will present our annual stocktake and forward strategy review as part of our third UK online Annual Report.

This month, therefore, we thought it would be timely not to focus on specific areas of the strategy, but to pause and reflect on the increasing extent to which the changes it is bringing about, are being felt across all aspects of our national life. Our latest survey (published on the OeE website) shows that fifty-two percent of Government services are now enabled and 71% are forecast to be made available by the end of the year. Over the last month, we have seen a range of very different practical examples of how new technology is changing the way people engage with the public sector:

• The Iraq Dossier: Your publication of the dossier clearly attracted huge demand for information from people and press around the world. Web delivery allowed a direct delivery of the dossier to hundreds of thousands of people without any third party alteration to its content or context, together with the broadcast video of your statement and the subsequent debate in Parliament. The demand proved extremely large and world-wide, even contributing to an overload of the Internet services in the London area. By working together, 9 Government sites managed to weather unprecedented demand and served up 200,000 copies of the dossier on the day. Over a million in total were distributed including via media sites. UK online played an important part in this joint effort.

• As part of the recent Soham proceedings: The use by the courts and prison services of a video link between Holloway Prison and Peterborough Crown Court, gave an extremely high profile demonstration of the way new technology is transforming the justice system. This is an example of a number of initiatives being taken forward in the crime and justice community. The use of text messaging and pager reminders to ensure witness time is not wasted, and plans to use interactive digital television and citizen facing portals, providing information and supporting transactions in both the justice and police worlds, are other key examples.

• Tax Returns: The September deadline for self-assessment tax returns approaches with a record number of online tax returns. Around 120,000 returns will be submitted by the end of September - more than twice the amount submitted for the same period last year and final numbers for 2002/03 to be 3 or 4 times last year. This is due to recent design improvements and better marketing, as well as taxpayers becoming more used to the idea of transacting electronically with Government.

• UK online iDTV: early September saw the launch of the enhanced UK online iDTV service on the Sky platform. The service includes a new design, a more intuitive navigation and a considerable increase in content from 70 to 300 pages. So we are now making the benefits of interactive Government available directly to 7 million living rooms across the UK. A recent survey of users found that 90% said that they were very or quite likely to return to this service.

Finally, we continue to make rapid progress with the underlying infrastructure, which is enabling joined-up access to Government services. Over the summer, the Government Gateway received its first major upgrade since its launch in January 2001. The upgrade has successfully tightened the code base and migrated the core functionality to allow faster deployment of new services, with lower maintenance and increased transparency.

The improvements will now provide:

• Services from local authorities and, potentially, links to private sector partners such as pension providers. These services will be enabled using the new Gateway ‘Hub and Spoke’ model. As an important step towards achieving our 2005 objectives, all departments and Government organisations outside the Government Secure Intranet (GSI) will now be able to access the Gateway;
• Simpler registration and enrolment by presenting the Gateway screens directly into portals and applications;
• Pre-registration of citizens and businesses to speed up the process of dealing with Government online;
• Provision of services where the citizen or business is dealing with Government for the first time, such as VAT registration or benefit applications;
• Redesigned screens and better help pages.

The upgrade will greatly facilitate the addition of further Government departments, organisations and local authorities transacting via the Gateway as well as greatly improve the Gateway user experience for citizens and businesses.We are continuing to work with an increasing number of potential stakeholders and several more transactions are scheduled to go live before the end of the year.

7 October 2002