IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The grant, which is additional incentive to local authority funding, rewards local authorities for progress in online planning, speed in determining applications, improving housing stock provision, and developing plans for their communities.

Only one in 10 regard the 'Connect to Your Council' take-up campaign currently underway to encourage people to access local government services online as "money well spent", according to research by Public Sector Forums, the independent network of eGovernment professionals.

February saw the inaugural meeting of the Active Windows Integrator (AWI) User Group, where a number of Local Authorities met to discuss the possibility of sharing scripts and to create an environment where knowledge and codes of best practice could be shared among members. The aim of the user group is to closely examine the need for IT managers to rely heavily on vendor API’s and to share source code through the creation of a common library.

The Government Connect project is to be given a higher profile and new leadership to capitalise on its successful first stage, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has revealed.

The national project to create secure local authority IT communications will now be owned by the North West e-Government Group (NWeGG), a partnership of all the local authorities in the north-west of England, and recieve more involvement from central government departments.

White Waltham, Maidenhead, 26 October 2005 – e-Government budgets have been ploughed into meeting the 2005 e-Government deadline, rather than encouraging citizens to fully utilise the online services now available, according to David Macken, managing director of Internet technology provider, System Associates.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is looking for groups of councils to drive forward its local e-services take up campaign, according to a letter sent to chief executives on 21 November 2005.

In the letter, Julian Bowrey, divisional manager for local e-government at the ODPM, signals the widespread concern that according to the latest figures the UK is below the EU average in usage of e-services.

The council has made huge strides in its e-government work, making as much of the council’s information and services available on-line as possible.

Local councils in the UK have moved to a "24/7 culture" after making almost all of their services "e-enabled".

The latest figures on the Government's drive towards e-government shows that more than 97 per cent of local services will be e-enabled by the turn of the year.

One of the most salient indicators in the government’s change of tack was the Gershon Report, which placed identifying over expenditure and inefficiency at the top of the agenda for local authorities. No longer granted special dispensation, these authorities were asked to call their house to order, enabling the public sector to resemble the private sector more closely in the way business was conducted and expenditure monitored.