E-government experts have derided the lack of progress the UK public sector has made in enabling citizens to complete key life event transactions online.

Kable, a public sector IT analyst, tested a number of different scenarios, from starting a business to registering a death, to examine how well e-government systems could cope.

The results were – unsurprisingly – varied, but the overall conclusions were disappointing.

"The most difficult events, such as registering a death – which can be stressful, and where citizens are most likely to be unfamiliar with the process – were the ones that performed worst," said Tom Fuller, a Kable analyst.

Kable based its assessment on factors such as the amount of information available online, the number of forms that could be completed online and the number of third parties involved in completing transactions.

Overall, the results suggest that the UK is somewhere in the top third of countries in terms of e-government sophistication, said Frank Moyer, chief executive of EzGov, an e-government consultancy that commissioned the research. "But the UK is not in the top 10."