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System error: why UK Online failed

The post of e-Envoy was created in 1998 to take the UK to the forefront of the electronic world. So why, asks Steve Hill, are the government's online services still so woefully inadequate?

Wednesday 30 April 2003 00:00 BST
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Andrew Pinder, the civil servant in charge of getting UK government services online, has become accustomed to reading reports that criticise his department's performance. The latest to land on his desk, from the management consultants Accenture, is perhaps the most damning to date. Not only does it contain the accepted wisdom that UK government sites are not particularly good. Crucially, it also states that progress in getting services online has slowed in the last year, so that the UK has lost ground to countries at a similar stage in development. The report concludes that, despite a "promising start", the Government seems to have "stalled somewhat of late".

So what has gone wrong? The UK Online dream started out so promisingly. In 1998, Peter Mandelson, then in charge at the Department of Trade and Industry, created the post of e-Envoy to "spearhead the Government's drive to ensure that, by 2002, the UK is the best environment worldwide in which to trade electronically". (It said so in the job advert.) The current e-Envoy – the second – is Andrew Pinder, a veteran IT specialist from the Inland Revenue and Citibank, appointed in January 2001. He was told to ensure that the target of getting all government services online by 2005 was met – and, while he was at it, to ensure that key services had a high degree of usage, and to promote the "e-agenda" across government.

The Accenture study ranked the government sites of 22 countries in terms of their "maturity". The term took in many factors, including the breadth and sophistication of the services on offer. The UK is eighth in the maturity ranking, falling two places from last year. Although UK Online, the Government's main portal, beat the equivalent websites of countries such as Germany, Japan and France, it also ranked below Finland, Australia and Singapore, among others. The report found that most UK government sites published information, but not a lot else. There was limited ability to carry out transactions online, or to interact with government. The UK had to develop a more "customer-driven" focus if it was to reach full maturity.

So, why has the process of getting government online stalled? Steve Dempsey, e-government partner at Accenture UK, says: "It takes a lot of focus to drive e-government across all departments. The structure of the UK government makes it particularly difficult. It has strong individual departments, each with its own agenda."

Derek Wyatt, Labour MP and chairman of the Associate Parliamentary Internet Group, said that the culture of Whitehall is to blame for the slow progress. "The Civil Service is petrified of change. We have 100,000 civil servants working in Whitehall. With the internet, you could probably dispense with 90 per cent of them. It's the most monumental change to the way that government is run. Yet the Civil Service is obstructing it at every level." Wyatt argues that a minister should be appointed to take complete charge of internet strategy. "Pinder is in an impossible position because he has to answer to three ministers."

Critics of the UK Online site (www.ukonline.gov.uk/) ask why it cannot be made as easy to use as the BBC website or Amazon. But it's impossible to make any meaningful comparison between government sites and those in more commercial sectors. The Government has a monopoly on many of its services – taxes, benefits, driving licences and passports being just the obvious ones. A commercial website may target a market sector of 500,000; the Government has 59 million "customers", each with varying degrees of experience in navigating the web.

Paul Blunden, chief executive of the Usability Company and member of the government committee on website-design standards, says: "Most of the government websites were not originally built with usability in mind, so a degree of re-engineering has to take place to improve them."

We'll come to the response of the e-Envoy's office in a moment. But it's useful to note first that some government websites around the world are getting it right. The contrast between UK Online at www.ukonline.gov.uk and the website of the Canadian government, www.canada.gc.ca, is stark. With a strong focus on the user, it seems to provide everything that UK Online lacks. The site is based around "audience gateways", and among the numerous transactional services on offer, businesses can manage their postal accounts and citizens can pay taxes online. Canada ranks top in the Accenture study.

The government of Canada has been rewarded for its efforts with high usage among its citizens. Around 50 per cent of all Canadians have visited the website. By contrast, only around 10 per cent of UK citizens have ever visited a government site.

Michelle d'Aurey, information officer for the government of Canada (equivalent to our e-Envoy) says: "From the start, we focused on the needs of the individual citizen or business. We constantly run an online citizens panel that collects data on user preferences, as well as quarterly focus groups." The country's internet programme is now into its fifth year. The structure of its government is more "horizontal" than that of the UK, which makes achieving that all-important "joined-up thinking" easier. The office of the e-Envoy is developing technical standards for the sharing of information between departments, but the thorny issues of data protection and privacy slow progress.

The integration of systems is also proving problematic. A freelance IT contractor, who wished not to be named, says: "You look at each of the government websites, and they're often sitting on completely different platforms to each other. There are so many different databases, you lose count. It makes the idea of integrating it all a joke."

And what does the e-Envoy think? Despite repeated requests, Andrew Pinder was unavailable for interview. A spokeswoman said: "The office of the e-Envoy remains committed to helping government departments put services online, with key services receiving high levels of usage." She added: "UK Online has seen consistent growth in visitor numbers in the past 12 months. The latest figures show just under 400,000 unique users for March 2003, compared with 58,000 in March 2002."

But what about the target of getting all government services online by 2005? According to latest statistics, 63 per cent of the services are online. But now it is felt that the focus needs to be on service rather than just quantity of information. The Canadian government redefined its goals, from putting all services online to only those that are most commonly used. Perhaps we should do the same.

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