E-Government to place most services online by 2005

The Cabinet Office Autumn Performance Report published today reckons that 96% of government services will be available online by the end of 2005, currently 75% of these services are available.

The outlook for use of these services is positive with transaction levels rising compared to other delivery channels such as face-to-face or phone transactions.

The Performance Report highlighted as examples:

• Services to businesses: 67% of incorporations are now electronic, up 19% from the previous year;
• Benefit and personal taxation services: over 1.1 million Self Assessment tax returns for 2002-03 were submitted electronically by April 2004;
• Transport and travel services: 79% of vehicle registrations are electronic;
• The Justice system; the Court Service's Money Claim Online continues to grow with over 60,000 claims being issued and over 11,000 responses filed;
• Land and property services: Land Register Online is attracting over 1,300 applications per day.

The Government's flagship digital service, 'Directgov', is being well received by customers after its launch this year and 80% of users state that the service gives convenient access to public services and information.

Directgov is regularly receiving 150,000 unique users per week.

Ian Watmore, Government CIO and Head of the e-Government Unit, said: "These results show that Departments have responded well to the breadth of the online delivery challenge set by the Prime Minister in 2000. Over the next few years the focus will be to improve take-up of these Government services, particularly those that really touch people's lives."

While continuing to measure progress against the 2005 target, the focus of the eGU is shifting away from enforcing service roll-out, towards new priorities of supporting departments.

(SP/MB)