E-envoy will focus on e-government, says e-minister

In an exclusive interview with silicon.com, Hewitt said hitting Tony Blair's 2005 target for getting government online is now the toughest task the e-envoy will face.

She said: "When we originally conceived the post a lot of British companies hadn't taken up the challenge of ecommerce and boardrooms just weren't focused on the issues at all.

"Now that has changed and we have people like Jim Norton and George Cox at the Institute of Directors banging the drum very effectively to their own members."

The job description of 'e-envoy' has faced strong criticism because of the duel nature of the job - evangelising to British industry and taking responsibility for internal government reforms.

Advertised in The Times, the job advert called for candidates to have board level experience in the private or public sector, and a "detailed understanding of issues and technologies affecting ecommerce".

According to Hewitt, there has been a lot of interest in the post and the government is confident of finding a strong candidate. "What we want is somebody who understands the power of IT, somebody who can exploit the power of the technology.

"We're looking for someone with really effective change management skills."

Hewitt praised interim e-envoy Andrew Pinder but said he wasn't in the running for the permanent post, adding the winning applicant will be announced as soon as possible.

The comments come as a blow to industry applicants such as Voodoo's Rene Carayol and the Ecademy's Thomas Power, but will be welcome news for government insiders, among them Richard Barrington and Ann Steward.

Hewitt was reluctant to support recent calls from parliamentary lobby group Eurim to appoint a Cabinet-level ecommerce minister, claiming information technology was already strongly represented and championed by the Prime Minister himself.