E-Envoy says 'don't write us off just yet'

The UK government's e-Envoy, Andrew Pinder, has hit back at claims that budget cuts could leave his department's future in doubt.

A Public Administration Select Committee was told earlier this year that the Office of the e-Envoy (OEE), which is responsible for overseeing the government's target of putting its services online by 2005, faces a 20 per cent budget cut next year.

Speaking to silicon.com, Pinder said that despite his department's unpopularity in some government quarters he will remain to make sure targets are met.

"We're not going away," he said. "We are focusing on really trying to make sure our government services in particular are usable and that means on occasions we are going to be saying things to government departments like 'you're service isn't good enough, you need to improve it' and that makes us a bit unpopular in one or two parts of one or two government departments who with wishful thinking would rather wish we would go away but we are not going to."

He said any talk of a 20 per cent budget cut is not a sign that his department is being scaled back, but just part of the "ups and downs" of civil service budgeting.

"I came into this job at the end of 2000. I inherited an organisation that had 70 people and a budget of about £10m. Going forward from now after the 'funding cuts' I have an organisation of over 140 people and £20m. In between we've had a bit of a peak particularly because we've been spending a lot of money on advertising."

Earlier this month Pinder admitted that once the 2005 e-government deadline does pass there is unlikely to be any need for a public-facing e-Envoy, as the focus shifts towards internal process re-engineering.