Supplier sounds alarm over UK e-government plans

A leading IT supplier to the UK government has cast doubts over its plans to deliver all public services online by 2008.

Mike Stock, director of government and public services at Bull Information Systems, said: "To get it finished by 2008 is a challenge and the government will need a following wind [to succeed]."

On Tuesday, the government's 'Cabinet enforcer', Jack Cunningham set the deadline for the move to e-government, claiming he wants to get rid of the "Whitehall knows best" attitude.

Cunningham said: "We are modernising government not because we want to make life more glitzy for ministers, or cosy for civil servants, but because we want to make life better for people who need and very often depend on public services."

But Bull's Stock was not convinced, claiming the government's poor track record with IT projects makes the deadline look less than realistic. "Dealing with the speed of IT change will be a challenge, and if dealt with effectively, then 2008 is a possibility. But the past record does not show this is likely to happen," he said.

Minister for Public Services, Peter Kilfoyle claimed the government is trying to "invoke a culture change for innovation".

"Within every department a senior board-level person will be charged with IT procurement, so that IT is dealt with the seriousness it deserves and not dealt with by a junior person," he said.

But Jane Roberts, marketing manager at Toplevel, a company that builds forms for delivering electronic government, said ministers are asking the impossible. "The government will never attain the target of 100 per cent [of electronic services] by 2008 because there will always be that little old lady who wants a piece of paper," she said.