Budget cut for e-envoy office
The Government's annual review of its spending will see the e-Envoy's budget slashed by a quarter, reports have claimed.
Link: UK egov plays catch-up with Europe
The Office of the e-Envoy is responsible for driving through plans to get government services online by 2005.
But according to The Independent, e-Envoy Andrew Pinder faces seeing his £20m budget cut by up to a quarter.
The Prime Minsiter’s enthusiasm for the project, dreamt up by former Labour golden-boy Peter Mandelson, has apparently cooled.
A spokeswoman for the e-Envoy said she was unable to comment while the official spending review was on-going.
‘But Andrew Pinder is confident on having the necessary resources,’ she said.
Take-up of online services has been poor. According to research from Portfolio Communications only seven per cent of Britons contacted their local authorities using the internet.
The elderly remain by far the highest users of council and social services, but are typically the least likely to use the internet.