Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

The United Kingdom
2004 Rank: 9 (joint)
2003 Rank: 8
2002 Rank: 6
Vision introduced: 2002
Vision title:
Information Age
Government
Vision summary:
The government’s vision is of modernized, efficient
government, alive to the latest developments in
e-business, and meeting the needs of citizens and
businesses.
Regular Internet users (percent of population):
53.20 percent
Regular Internet users who have ever visited an
eGovernment site: 61 percent
The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom made limited progress in its
eGovernment program last year, which caused it to
slip one place in the rankings to a joint ninth-place
position with the Netherlands. The United Kingdom
is among the large group of countries with maturity
between 50 percent and 60 percent; consequently,
its slower eGovernment progress allowed it to be
overtaken by one of its close-ranking neighbors,
France.
While overall the services we surveyed for this report
changed little, the UK government offered some
notable improvements to its online program in 2003.
The Government Gateway (www.gateway.gov.uk)—
the centralized registration service for eGovernment
services—underwent a major upgrade in April 2003
to allow end-to-end transactions between agencies
as well as with their customers. Also in 2003, the
first service using the Government Gateway’s new
payment engine functionality went live.
For now, the United Kingdom’s eGovernment vision
and strategy remain unchanged. Changes may be on
the horizon, however. Andrew Pinder, the UK government
e-Envoy, will retire from his post in April 2004.
At that time, his responsibilities for eGovernment
will transfer to a new appointee in a newly created
role, the Head of eGovernment. This will be a
Cabinet-level position, described as “analogous to
that of a CIO in a very large and diverse conglomerate”
and “one of the most influential roles in the
world of IT today.”
According to the UK Online Annual Report 2003,
www.e-envoy.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/00/60/69/
04006069.pdf, “the challenge for government will
be to capitalize on the potential of ICT (information
and communications technology) to transform service
delivery and achieve a step change in operational
efficiency...The government has decided to appoint a
Head of eGovernment, whose role will be to give
strategic leadership and drive to the application of
ICT within government to support the reform and
modernization of Britain’s public services.” This official
will be responsible for delivering existing targets
for electronic service delivery by 2005, and will likely
work closely with the Office of Government
Commerce to that end.
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