UK Online celebrates its second birthday

The government's UK Online programme is two years old today, with Labour politicians claiming the country's information economy has progressed in leaps and bounds during the last 12 months.

Launching UK Online's second annual report, trade secretary Patricia Hewitt praised the advances made in all areas.

"Two years ago we said we had to get the people right, the market framework right and government services right," she said. "in this report there are real achievements on all of those fronts."

The report highlights UK Online's successful establishment of 2,000 online centres in libraries and community centres, and the amount of small and medium-sized firms with an established web presence.

But the government's ecommerce team, led by Hewitt and e-envoy Andrew Pinder, still face tough targets - particularly with broadband access and e-government services.

Hewitt admitted she was disappointed by the slow uptake of broadband. "We now have the cheapest unmetered narrowband access in the world, outside the US," she said. "ironically this has somewhat dampened the market for broadband."

Pinder said well over half of government services were already online, and departments were on track for the 2005 deadline. "There are one or two countries doing better than us, but largely we're world-class leaders," he claimed.

"Now we're rapidly moving towards getting transactions online and the key is the Government Gateway," Pinder added.

According to a former government IT consultant, Ken D'Rosario, moving towards fully e-enabled transaction services could be a stumbling block for the UK Online team. "The government is electronically aware and electronically promoting itself," he said, "but it's not actually transacting electronically."

D'Rosario, now a public sector specialist at Alcatel, said the key would be a partnership between the government and commercial firms.

"The next 12 months will require a different mindset, and I don't know if the public and private sectors will be able to work together to achieve that, " he said. "The industry has the platforms and the government has the content, but there is still a lack of trust."