Bull urges ministers to promote e-government

Systems integrator, Bull Information Systems, has criticised the UK government's lack of action to raise awareness of its e-government programme, which aims to put all public services online by 2008.

The company commissioned research firm, Gallup to survey 500 members of the general public. Gallup found that 88 per cent had not heard about the programme.

Bull CEO, Barry Grisdale, said: "This is a frightening figure, given what the government is saying. It wants an aggressive push down this track."

Grisdale praised the sentiments behind the initiative, but said the government is dragging its heels and should set more realistic milestones. "2008 is a long way off; we can't even tell what technology will be available then. This is all just an elephant in the future; there are no clear milestones to track progress," he said.

But Grisdale added: "Once Gallup explained what the plans were about, the majority said they'd accept it. They saw it would improve the level of service the government can give."

Grisdale said public opinion towards electronic ID cards was also shown to have changed. "When a survey was done two years ago about electronic ID cards, only one per cent said they felt comfortable with them. But our research shows this figure has jumped to 43 per cent. Overall, the public are saying they will accept technology as they recognise its benefits," he said.

Grisdale called for a national advertising campaign outlining the benefits of IT. However, a Cabinet Office spokeswoman said that would be a waste of money. "There will be many opportunities to raise awareness of the target as the progress is made towards achieving it. We'll publish this progress through print and broadcast media, but we're not spending taxpayers money on running an ad campaign," she said.