UK's £3bn e-gov push

Or is it £2.4bn?

The UK's e-envoy has welcomed the Chancellor's spending review as an important milestone in the delivery of government services online.

In a report to the Prime Minister, Andrew Pinder said the Chancellor, by earmarking £3 billion in funding for e-government over the next three years, offered the opportunity to create a coherent strategy for the delivery of government services over the Net.

KableNet, the research group which publishes Government Computing, reckons this figure is closer to £2.4 billion.

It has provided a more detail breakdown of spending plans than available in Pinder's statement.

According to KableNet, the budget includes: Criminal Justice System (£870m); local government online (£500m); customs modernisation (£202m); Inland Revenue services (£305m); the Department of Trade and Industry (£103m); and the Office of National Statistics (£75m). Funds allocated to the NHS have yet to be decided.

Still, the 2002 allocation represents a large increase from the £1billion spending review of 2000. It represents a change of emphasis from a concentration of high-impact projects, some of which have badly misfired (the modernisation of the Magistrates Court systems and plans to put the 1901 Census online come to mind).

Pinder is upbeat about the prospect of government investment in technology, arguing that e-services offer significant benefits to users and opportunities to make the delivery of government services more efficient.

In his statement, he highlights the Office of the e-envoy's UK Online Interactive Digital Television (iDTV) service on Sky, which has generated around 20,000 visitors a month since its launch in April, as the kinds of service wants to see developed further. ®