Annex D
FOR T&I SELECT
COMMITTEE
The Office of the e-Envoy includes two teams
working to help public service providers to meet the Prime Minister's
target of delivering all public services electronically by 2005.
The UK online Citizen's Portal, which went live
on 4 December 2000, included four Life Episodes. These have been
developed to help citizens to navigate their way around the complexity
of public services during a major life event. The first four to
be developed are "having a baby", "moving home",
"going away" and "dealing with crime". Two
more—"death and bereavement" and "learning
to drive" are being developed for a February release.
The Citizen's Portal currently provides a source
of information to help users of public services, but does not
deliver services per se. this will become possible when the Government
Gateway is launched in late January.
The Government Gateway will provide a secure
environment in which citizens and businesses will be able to submit
personal or confidential information to a wide range of public
services—the services with which they currently deal in
person or by post or telephone. The user's identity will be authenticated,
enabling public service providers to confidently make financial
and other transactions in return.
The first transactions offered through the Government
Gateway will be PAYE filing, VAT movements, and Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP) scheme. CAP scheme will be the first live transaction,
accepting transactions from mid-March, and the remainder will
follow shortly after. The three departments concerned—Inland
Revenue, Customs and Excise and MAFF respectively—have been
closely involved in the development. An early suggestion that
"booking a driving test" might be feasible electronically
has since been discounted.
The Government Gateway team is currently working
to identify the next batch of services to be delivered electronically.
The aim is to contact as many central government departments,
local government agencies and devolved administrations as possible
to investigate the readiness to deliver services over the Gateway.
This will involve the department working with the Gateway Team
to assess the department's technical readiness for participation
and to identify suitable transactions. This activity will result
in a "roadmap" of potential transactions, with expected
delivery dates. These can then be prioritised as required.
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