IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Land Registry has chosen Wily Technology to monitor and manage the performance of its online services and applications, based upon the IBM WebSphere platform.

The implementation of the data integration platform will enable the Land Registry to use, extract, transform and load processes to provide consistent data for BI. Steven Philips, Delivery Manager at the Land Registry, said it was crucial that the organisation maintained concise and accurate data for BI, and improved data integration for the BI warehouse.

The Land Registry has launched an online service offering cheap and easy public access to information held on 19 million properties across England and Wales.

The service allows citizens to search the register to find out prices, ownership details and registration plans on a specified property.

Land Registry Director of Information Systems John Wright said: "We are delighted to sign up as members of PISCES and look forward to a productive partnership. PISCES is one of the key drivers behind the adoption of open e-business standards for the property industry, enabling it to function more effectively and efficiently.

Land Register Online was launched on 31 January by chief land registrar Peter Collis and Andrew Stott, deputy chief information officer at the Cabinet Office’s e-government unit.

The Inland Revenue web site struggled to cope with a surge in last-minute tax returns this week, with more than 30,000 people a day trying to submit their completed forms before the 31 January deadline.

Many were unable to access the site because of the record numbers using the online service, while others complained they had not received a confirmation email after submitting their self-assessment details.

There has been much grumbling and rolling of eyes from people in local authorities tasked with squeezing more cost out of their systems as a result of the government's efficiency targets.

But as our case study with St Helens Council shows, big savings can be seen by those willing to take bold moves - in this case moving from a mainframe to a server environment. And they are not alone, as other local authorities are undertaking similar initiatives.

This is the implication of research into the impact of online school admissions systems, which warns there's a risk that only the parents who are already comfortable with the internet are likely to use them.

For a very long time, 2005 has been talked about as a watershed year for e-government in the UK. Here we are approaching the end of year deadline - note, at the start of the year we quickly heard the government and various civil servants start talking about the December 2005 deadline - and we are pretty much ready to ask whether the shift has been a success.

How does an IT system designed to make applications more efficient end up making the whole process more complicated and painful for those involved?

These are two of the questions that - we hope - the government will be pondering following some more fierce criticism of the technology behind its flagship tax credits system.

An official of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) told Government Computing News on 16 December 2003 that it is planning an effort to increase usage of the Gateway.

The 2,000 care workers, delivering high and low dependency care to vulnerable people throughout Leeds, will be able to use a mobile solution to send care information directly back to head office from a clients’ home, in real time, via GPRS using their mobile phone.