Birmingham takes European e-government crown

Birmingham is Europe's top city for e-government services, an academic study has found.

According to researchers at Spain's University of Zaragoza, the UK hosts six of the top 10 cities that provide local government information to the public over the internet.

The study, conducted with 35 cities in 12 EU countries, found that website sophistication, e-democracy and e-services in the UK outstripped those in neighbouring countries.

However, the report points out that all countries are failing to implement some services; although Birmingham topped the chart, its overall score was only 52 per cent. The report's authors say this is because most councils are failing to combine communication, technology and democracy in their approach to e-government.

The report says: "A first finding seems to be that there is no clear relationship between public administration styles and e-service developments. However, few websites show clear signs of e-democracy and customer case handling services.

"Although ICTs could effectively develop all three roles there is a systematic bias which favours service delivery applications and does not pay sufficient attention to others."

Local governments are also criticised for focusing too much on the private sector use of ecommerce tools, rather than introducing changes with the citizen in mind.

The academics scored Barcelona joint first with Birmingham, followed by Amsterdam, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Vienna, Dublin, Sheffield and Leeds, respectively.

Coming in last was Belfast, with an overall score of 21.7 per cent.