Gateway is also a remarkable attempt to re-engineer public services on a "hub and spoke" model. The idea is for Whitehall departments, government agencies and local authorities to share the same shop window for secure transactions. Citizens and businesses don't need to know which agency or tier of administration is handling their case.
Two years on, this is still a distant vision. Few individuals have bothered to obtain digital signatures, which are needed for the top level of security. Plans for local authorities to connect to the Gateway seem to be stalled. Government web sites continue to proliferate: at the last count, there were more than 3,000.
There are even questions about the constitutional legality of the model. "It seems to be a case of technology determining the structure of government rather than the other way round," says John Morison, professor of jurisprudence at Queen's University Belfast.
The Office of the e-Envoy, which runs Gateway as one of a handful of core essential e-government systems, said this week that much progress has been made. Fourteen public services are available through the Gateway. The most widely used is income tax self-assessment, though people can also apply for child benefit online. Other services are aimed mainly at business users.
However, in the year to March 31, the Gateway handled only 914,304 transactions. According to Cabinet Office e-minister Douglas Alexander, that is just 0.02% of the 5bn transactions government carries out with business alone every year.
Technically, Gateway is an authentication and routing engine based on open standards, allowing different government offices to exchange messages that are secure and cannot be repudiated. Gateway "middleware" authenticates a user and, with "tagging" technology similar to that of the world wide web, routes messages securely to the recipient.
Signing on for a user name and password is straightforward, even for a Mac user. You have to register for one of four services - I picked self assessment. On my first attempt, I entered a false Inland Revenue reference along with my postcode and national insurance number. The registration was rejected because this did "not match the information held by the government department that handles this service". The second attempt produced a 12-digit user ID which, in theory, I can now use for every government service.
In theory. The Office of the e-Envoy estimates that 20% of the 500 services that government provides need users to prove their identity. Yet most of the "transactional" government services of interest to ordinary people - paying parking tickets, for example - are run by local councils. They have shown little enthusiasm for becoming "spokes" of the Cabinet Office model of government.
Two authorities last year signed up to pilot Gateway: Sedgemoor district in Somerset and Sunderland City. Sedgemoor is testing it to authenticate access to personal information and to conduct transactions in a way that cannot be repudiated. Sunderland ended up developing its own system for exchanging messages between departments.
When first announced, Gateway technology attracted a huge amount of international interest. The Office of the e-Envoy negotiated an agreement with Microsoft under which it would receive a royalty of 24% on technology sales. No other government has taken up the offer.
One hope is that new services will increase uptake for the Gateway. One service to be launched this year will allow users to make payments electronically with any government agency. Another, secure mail, will be the start of two-way e-government.
The other hope is for intermediaries such as private companies and voluntary organisations to run e-government services through the Gateway. "We firmly believe that more intermediaries offering the service means more channels to the end customer and therefore more take-up," the official said.
That may be not quite as easy as it sounds. Professor Morison is concerned about the constitutional implications. In the current issue of the journal Public Law, he warns that by promoting one-stop government, the Gateway is "attempting to promote a structural change that would have fundamental constitutional implications... Ideas of separation of powers, rule of law and basic principles of legality do not seem to have troubled the information systems engineers."
No doubt these issues are soluble. But one lesson to draw from Gateway is that, however clever the technology, don't try to ignore the history, geography and culture of the government machine.
Get it on Gateway
The 14 public services available, of which the most widely used is income tax self assessment:
- Child benefit online (Department of Work and Pensions)
- Corporation tax (Inland Revenue)
- Tax credits (Inland Revenue)
- Electronic VAT return (HM Customs and Excise)
- Sheep annual premium scheme application (Northern Ireland department of agriculture)
- Export licence (Department of Trade and Industry)
- Duty deferment Electronic Statements (HM Customs and Excise)
- New export system (NES) (HM Customs and Excise)
- Oils look-up service (HM Customs and Excise)
- Internet service for self assessment (Inland Revenue)
- PAYE (Inland Revenue)
- DARD online (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland)
- IACS Area Aid Application (Defra)
- Landweb direct (Land Registers of Northern Ireland)
