[LINK] Every [UK] citizen to have page for dealing with govt

[Roger Clarke]

[Oh yes, and a national ID scheme.

[And fewer counter-services, and reduced/slower call centre-services.

[And it's to be a public-private partnership, presumably with Google ...]


Every citizen to have personal webpage
  The [London] Daily Telegraph
Published: 8:30AM GMT 20 Mar 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7484600/Every-citizen-to-have-personal-webpage.html

Everyone in the country is to be given a personalised webpage for 
accessing Government services within a year as part of a plan to save 
billions of pounds by putting all public services online, Gordon 
Brown is to announce.

The Prime Minister has previously hailed the potential for the 
internet to slash the costs of delivering services by reducing paper 
forms, face-to-face contact with officials, postage, phone calls and 
building costs.

He is now set to use a speech on Monday to unveil plans to give every 
voter a unique identifier allowing them to apply for school places, 
book GP appointments, claim benefits, get a new passport, pay council 
tax or register a car.

Within another three years, the Times reported, the secure site would 
include a Facebook-style interactive service allowing people to ask 
medical advice of their doctor or consult their children's teachers.

The move could see the closure of job centres and physical offices 
dealing with tax, vehicle licensing, passports and housing benefit 
within 10 years as services were offered through a single digital 
''gateway'', Downing Street sources told the newspaper.

Private firms such as Amazon could be involved in a bid to make the 
processes as simple as possible, it said.

But the proposals came under fire from union leaders who complained 
that thousands of public sector workers would be made jobless and 
pointed to the Government's poor record of handling personal data.

Questions have also been raised about the impact on some older people 
unable to use the internet.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial 
Services Union, said: ''Cutting public services is not only bad for 
the public who use services but also the economy as we are pushing 
people who provide valuable services on the dole.''

Among the Prime Minister's advisers on the drive to put services 
online is world wide web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

''I don't want to go to a government office to do a government thing. 
It should all be online. That saves time for people and it saves 
money for the Government - the processing of a piece of paper and 
mailing it back costs many times more than it costs to process 
something electronically,'' he told the newspaper.

''There will come a point where you don't need all the physical 
offices any more.''

The Tories are also exploring ways to switch services to the web.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
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Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University