Key report shows UK is IT 'underachiever'

A Government IT report that was supposed to form the crux of last month's e-summit showed the UK lagging behind competitors.

Published on 19 November 2002, to coincide with last month's 'e-summit', the International e-Economy Benchmarking Report found whilst the UK shows 'readiness' for e-Government, it lags behind the leaders in key areas such as 'Government uptake'; 'citizen uptake'; and 'infrastructure.'

The survey pitted Britain against Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the US. It placed the UK behind Canada and the US in terms of e-Government services offered.

It also showed the UK behind Germany in 'rate of progress' and ranked it in 'the middle of the pack' in 'Government e-maturity.'

Despite the abundance of 'actionable strategies' and 'common architecture frameworks', the report found the UK performed poorly on 'service maturity.'

It also found 'relatively few citizens' in the UK (11 per cent) are using e-Government services compared to 34 per cent in the US and 46 per cent in Canada.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who used his speech at the e-summit to outline a £6 billion investment in UK IT infrastructure, said he understood more work needed to be done.

'Few citizens use UK Government e-services' - International e-Economy Benchmarking Report

Mr Blair told delegates at the conference: "We recognise British businesses and citizens are not yet using Government services online in the numbers that match the best in the world."

He added Andrew Pinder, the e-Envoy, will "work with departments to agree a strategy for reform, designed to improve the development delivery and communication of online services."

E-envoy Andrew Pinder is charged with meeting UK Government IT targets, including:

• to make the UK the best place in the world for e-commerce;
• to ensure that everyone who wants to can access the internet by 2005; and
• to deliver electronically, and in a customer-focused way, all Government services by 2005.

The report found Governments using the Internet most were: Sweden, Canada, the US and Australia.

It also identified the Governments of these countries had achieved a high level of interaction with citizens and businesses, which the UK has not yet reached.

Increasing numbers of payments made by businesses over the Internet and high usage of online Government services by businesses and citizens were both cited as success stories by countries that had struck the right balance between service provision and interaction.