In two critical reports on e-services to voters, Westminster's main
financial and efficiency watchdog, the House of Commons Public
Accounts Committee (PAC), questioned the success of the
Government's moves to put Whitehall online.
The PAC also accused the Government of failing to provide
information on whether electronic services to the public are
actually working properly or not.
In its report entitled Improving Public Services Through
E-government, the all-party group of MPs, said, "Departments
frequently justify their significant investment in IT projects by
the potential to improve their operational efficiency and release
resources to redeploy to front-line service delivery."
The report added, "For example, NHS Direct, by providing health
advice online, should release doctors' and nurses' time to treat
more serious cases. Departments have very little information,
however, on the extent to which such improvements are currently
being achieved.
"Departments need to establish reliable baselines against which
they should assess and report whether their investment in new
technology is achieving the expected benefits.''
The PAC warned that there is a significant danger that even if the
Government achieved its target of putting 100% of services online
by 2005, people would not necessarily use the electronic
channel.
PAC chairman Edward Leigh said services must provide more than
basic information to allow the public to carry out transactions
with government, such as applying for passports and benefits. He
said more has to be done to encourage people to use e-services -
especially for the elderly and less well off.
The committee said the UK lags behind Canada, Singapore and the US
in the provision of e-services.
It also highlighted the risk that too few companies other than big
services suppliers such as EDS and Accenture would bid for
government contracts. The report called for projects to be broken
up so that small and medium-sized IT companies could bid for
government work.
In a separate report entitled E-Revenue, the PAC expressed concern
that the Inland Revenue will not meet its target of having all its
services available electronically by 2005, with 50% of taxpayers
using online systems. In particular, the committee said too few
accountants and agents are using the new technology.
The PAC said there are not enough obvious benefits for taxpayers to
go online. It urged the Inland Revenue to take action to make
electronic services for taxpayers more user-friendly, reliable and,
above all, secure.
Leigh said, "There are not enough clear benefits at present for
taxpayers to submit their tax returns electronically rather than on
paper. In addition, potential users of the Inland Revenue's
e-services will not be encouraged to make the switch in the light
of the well-publicised initial difficulties of using services and
concerns over system security."