I am very pleased to have been asked to take part in this fresh look at how government communicates. The Civil Service -- particularly its information professionals -- has always had a duty to ensure that government gets its messages across.

The Civil Service must ensure that changes to law are explained. It has always offered the opportunity to consult on policy issues and has published the results. It has always mounted professional, award-winning publicity campaigns to motivate people to take part in the census, remember tax deadlines or avoid drinking then driving. We all remember "Clunk Click every trip." Government also has a duty to deliver news to the public, journalists and professionals. It must provide clear guidance, friendly advice, and impartial explanations of government policy.

To do that we have always had to target and communicate effectively with a range of different audiences.

It is this challenge for rapidly changing digital media that we are considering today.

As was evident from Patricia Hewitt's speech, government has done an excellent job of both adapting to and helping to create the knowledge economy and society.

It is equally clear that we are about to enter a new digital media landscape that confronts e-Communicators with new challenges. In the roughly five years since the World Wide Web became a reality, government has adapted swiftly. We have published a truly staggering amount of information online.

For example, The Department for Education and Employment website provides well over 50,000 documents and has roughly 400 sub-domains. The Department of Health maintains and updates over 55,000 documents on its site. The Ukonline.gov citizen portal lists nearly 1000 central government websites.

In the early days of the Web the main driver for publication was open government. Publishing online was seen as a way of providing more information quickly and cheaply. This model got the information online, but sometimes user-friendly design trailed behind.

A rapid proliferation of websites shone a new light on government information. The Web showed that however professional and impartial government information was, it came from hundreds of different sources. We saw that our information did not add up to a whole.

The profusion of organisations and different navigation systems sometimes seemed not so much to publish documents as to hide them in plain sight.

But even from the earliest days, government websites innovated. For example the award winning FCO website provided a highly respected mix of frequently updated news and travel advice. The Army website pioneered powerful display text and direct online staff recruitment. We will hear in a few minutes about one of the earlier government e-commerce sites, established by the Health and Safety Executive.

The audience for government online information and services has become vast. The Web has become a major medium for government communication. For example, each week servers run by CCTA for government successfully deliver between 14 and 22 million page downloads to the public and professionals. The COI news website delivers roughly 1.5 million news releases each week to the public.

Yet despite the importance of the audience and the amount of information to be updated, it is not unusual to find government websites that do not have one full time staff member to run them. Indeed one major Department reports that it runs its website on roughly 70% of one person's time and no operating budget for purchasing.

Another department with tens of thousands of pages to maintain has a purchasing budget of £15,000. The recent Cabinet Office audit of government websites confirms that staff levels and budgets can be surprisingly low.

One of the aims of this conference is to ensure that we all go back into our organisations and carefully consider if we have properly resourced our web provision both in terms of staff numbers, training and budget.

We need to treat the web as a major communication medium in its own right... not just somewhere where we republish documents best suited for other media. This means as with any other communication medium, the web deserves specially written content and targeted design.

Henry Ford once said of the Model T "You can have any colour you like so long as it's black." Other manufacturers soon proved this approach was wrong. We have gone beyond the days of the Model T website. One size no longer fits all.

For example, how useful to a visually impaired person is a page of 30 links read out to them slowly by a screen reader? How useful to a concerned patient is a policy document written for a health professional?

The mobile environment has already shown us that we need to specially write and structure material for its smaller screen and different audience. Effective use of the web will mean segmentation for different audiences and different channels.

So you're now entitled to ask: how are we helping you to do that?

The e-Communications group of Office of the e-Envoy was created to tackle issues of audiences and communications in digital media.

Many of you know that they publish Guidelines for Government Websites on behalf of the Information Age Champions. A newly updated version of the Guidelines in now in consultation with the Government Internet Working Group, the Whitehall Web Network, and the Government Internet Forum, run by COI.

These new Guidelines will do more than share best practice. They will provide free template designs including cascading style sheets. They will provide examples of code for copying onto sites to help ensure best standards.

We are considering carefully what parts of the Guidelines to make mandatory. This is only because so many web managers in government have asked us to do so.

Our own webmasters want to establish the need to maintain high standards of accessibility. We have a legal duty to ensure the disabled can use our content and services online. That is why I have asked that all government websites meet the World Wide Web consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative basic standard of accessibility. This is an international, recognised standard that will change and evolve alongside the technology. It is the simplest way to keep our promises on accessibility.

We have been also asked for help in providing a business case for digital media. E-Communications Group are currently briefing a consultancy to produce business cases that will identify where digital media truly add value. This will help identify what aspects of digital provision to target and the appropriate level of resourcing. This study will focus on two real government organisations. One will be a large Department with a broad range of policy responsibilities. The other will be an agency concerned with delivering services. We are still carefully considering who these organisations might be... and will listen carefully to any suggestions.

Office of the e-Envoy, e-Communications also runs a group for suppliers of web design to government. Its first meeting in July attracted over 150 companies. They were briefed on such issues as how government websites are different and the core points of the Guidelines.

This group will meet soon to discuss the new Guidelines... and it would be most helpful to know from you what messages you have for the design industry.

We are aware of course that services, online information and IT systems all add up to form a whole. All of your organisations have been hard at work together the Office of the e-Envoy to deliver your e-business strategies. They form a good basis for all of us to move forward together but make clear the size and importance of the task still ahead.

Incidentally, I'm sure you will all join with me in congratulating Andrew Pinder on his appointment as the e-Envoy following an open competition.

You are all aware that government has not only set the vision but has translated this into hard targets. The Prime Minister has announced that by 2005 all government services will be on line. This isn't pie in the ski, it’s a deliberate attempt to try and ensure a culture of change in the public sector. To meet these targets they need to be realistic, but at the same time we need to recognise that there's a job on to achieve them.

One of the Office’s recent successful deliveries has been the UKonline portal.

It not only joins up information and services for central government, but it also works increasingly closely with local information and service delivery. It will be a resource for joined up information delivery for all of government.

The Portal is seeking to engage and serve our citizens in ways that reflects the citizen’s needs – wherever they may be in the UK, be it Wales, London, Northern Ireland or Scotland. For the first time, the public services will be organised around the needs of the customer. This itself is a huge task, and it will not all be delivered on day one. But the vision is to create a virtual "one stop shop" which will bring all public services together, whether provided by central or local government.

This portal will be officially launched soon. It went live in early December with no publicity to the public. Since then, without any promotion, UKonline has received over 6.5 million hits.

The Gateway project will also be crucial to link information across government. Data entered through the Gateway can be fed into a range of different database systems. It will become the engine of government online service delivery. Again, it will be a major resource for all of you.

Which brings me to one of today's announcements.

Government organisations are bringing the same energy and commitment to the development of portal sites that they brought to the creation of websites. There are already portals online or in development for youth, parents, consumers, the rural audience, local government, and many others.

These portals work in different ways. They all make different demands on the user and on other government webmasters. They may not add up to a coherent and useful information system for users. Opportunities for co-operation, joint purchasing, and sharing of best practice may be missed. Lessons learned from UK online and opportunities offered by the Gateway may not be taken up.

For that reason I intend to form a Government Portals Network Group. This group will consist of representatives from the lead Department on any portal in development or already up and running. It will share best practice and act as a resource for a Portals Steering Committee that will work to determine the best way to ensure there is a coherent, audience-driven system of government portals.

The Portals Steering Committee will ensure that if a thousand flowers bloom, there will be a beautiful and orderly garden. The Portals Steering Committee will be our Capability Brown, creating balance and structure.

Making best use of digital media will lead to changes in all communication and publishing, just as providing services online has had a major impact on back end business processes. We will hear later from government webmasters on the need for publications, campaigns and websites to form a whole communication package. We need to ensure that our communications work together in all media.

This process is all part of joining up government. Central and local, content and services, online and offline, front end and back end... there should be no dividing lines between them.

We are investing more than £1billion in the next three years. There is much work still to be done, but e-government can measurably improve services we provide and ultimately the whole image of Government.

People can now get online, rather than have to wait in line for many useful services. New technology is helping us turn public services inside out.

We are determined that everyone can benefit from these new services so that we don't build a society of 'have-nets' and 'have-nots'. That is why the Government is also investing to get all schools and libraries on the net, opening hundreds of UKonline centres and distributing computers to low-income families.

We appreciate that some people will never want to use new technology, and we must ensure that there are always face to face services provided to those who still want them.

But these new customers are king. We need to know the content and the services they want, because they will demand them from us. What is happening now is nothing less than a revolution in the way we do everything.

That revolution has its start with those of us in this room. The benefits will be to ourselves, to our Departments and to the public we serve. E-government will make the jobs of public servants easier. The seamlessness that is brought about by implementing common standards will help to reduce bureaucracy, improve our management systems, and free up staff from mundane process duties to provide better services. The creation of 24 hour government at people’s fingertips is going to require effort from all. But it will bring about a transformation. A fundamental change in the way that government interacts with the citizen.