IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The proposals could see police force fleets merged into regional operations similar to the country’s ambulance fleets, which are now operated as 11 regional fleets.

However, the plans will still allow for a force’s fleet autonomy while merging back-office fleet requirements and operations.

The Violent and Sex Offenders Register (ViSOR) was built by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) in partnership with police and probation professionals.

Police are testing online tools to help Yorkshire small firms combat e-crime, before extending the system to the rest of the UK.

The yorkshire-safe.org web site features a tool to allow businesses to check the security of their systems and provides hints and tips on security.

The Home Office has launched a website with the answers to 500 questions on criminal law and police procedures, it was announced on 23 March 2005. It has created the site in an effort to reduce the number of people calling local police forces with non-urgent queries.

Police officers will not have a single digital identity for secure access to national IT systems until two years after originally planned.

The Police Portal (www.police.uk) has been operational for three years and is a valuable tool for police forces in the reduction and prevention of crime, as well as improving communication between the public and police, and between individual police forces. It offers the public a number of services, including the ability to report non-emergency crime.

Last week the Conservative Technology Forum launched its grandly-titled 'Digital Action Plan' at the party's spring forum in Brighton.

It showed off its digital credentials by putting the photos of the launch onto the ultra-hip Flickr photo-sharing website.

According to a Telewest survey of 3,150 people in the UK, around a third of whom had internet access at home, young people are much more likely to email their MP. The 18-34 age group also said they would be more likely to vote if they could do so online, while the vast majority (over 80 per cent) of those over fifty said the option would make no difference. People also said they would be more likely to vote if contacted directly by their MP, but 50 per cent of us still don't know who our representative is.

Just 5% of surfers have visited the House of Commons website in the past year and only 2% have seen the site of their local MP, according to the survey by the Oxford Internet Institute.

Der Umgang mit vertraulichen Personendaten wird bei der Polizei in England und Wales trotz massiver Kritik ausgeweitet. Die als "Bobbies" bekannten Streifenpolizisten sind vom kommenden Sommer an flächendeckend mit einem mobilen Fingerabdruck-Scanner unterwegs, teilte die Behörde zur Verbesserung der Polizeiarbeit (NPIA) am Donnerstag in London mit. Der Scanner könne die Identität von Verdächtigen auf der Straße innerhalb von zwei Minuten überprüfen. Die Fingerabdrücke werden in einer nationalen Datenbank abgeglichen, in der 8,3 Millionen Abdrücke gespeichert sind.

Hundreds of voters in constituencies across the UK were unable to vote as polling stations could not process voters in time, resulting in angry scenes and lock outs.

Mike Davis, senior analyst at Ovum, said the current voting system was "a 19th centuty process for 21st century population".

Improving the customer's experience of public services is not something that local authorities or central government departments can do in isolation. The work we do to improve our own operations will ultimately impact on the others, and if we are really going to join-up related services for our shared customers, then it requires us to work together.

Almost three-quarters of local authorities lack the know-how to develop effective e-government services, according to the latest report from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.