Bowrey said: "On 11th November, Local e-Government Minister Jim Fitzpatrick announced the launch of a national take-up campaign designed to raise citizen awareness and use of council e-services going online as a result of the Local e-Government Programme . This is in response to the fact that the UK is currently below the EU average in terms of use of public authority e-services.
Our MORI research for the e-Citizen National Project (www.e-citizen.gov.uk) showed that current usage of council e-channels still lags behind public interest in using them. For example, the research suggests that 46% (17.5 million) of the adult population of England is predisposed to use council e-channels. The national take-up campaign will aim to tap into this latent demand, and support councils in turning citizen interest into action.
As part of campaign initiation, we are now working to establish stakeholder groups of councils in suitable areas to participate in the main campaign work. These groups will ensure the engagement and close involvement of local authority communications professionals and e-government practitioners. It is our intention to convene these stakeholder groups formally in December, with a view to launching the campaign early in 2006.
I hope that all local authorities, whether active participants in the main campaign or not, will benefit from the wealth of market research and creative material that our campaign work will produce.
Further information about the take-up campaign can be found at our website www.localegov.gov.uk/take-up. For information purposes, we also plan to host a free half-day conference for all local authorities in London on 13th December 2005, full details of which will be posted on our take-up campaign web pages shortly. I do hope that a representative from your authority will be able to attend this important event.
Once again, I am grateful for the ongoing support of your authority and hope that the developments described here will help us to work together during this crucial phase of our programme"
Quelle: Publictechnology, 23.11.2005
