An official of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) told Government Computing News on 16 December 2003 that it is planning an effort to increase usage of the Gateway. Julian Bowrey, the local e-government programme manager in the ODPM, acknowledged that council's usage of the system – an authentication and routing engine built on open standards - has been relatively low and that this has been a cause of concern.
Figures compiled as part of the progress report on the National Strategy for Local e-Government show that there is currently minimal use of the Gateway by councils, and that about a third of councils do not intend to use it by the end of 2005.
"There are technical issues but it is principally a business issue," Bowrey said. "We are going to develop a proposition around the use of the Gateway that will take in factors such as the cost and legal liability. I don't think we've done enough to develop the proposition."
Bowrey said one of the measures will be to set up meetings between the ODPM, the Office of the e-Envoy (soon to become the Office of e-Government) and representatives of local authorities.
"We hope that by the middle of next year we will have got to the position where we can say to the councils 'This is the proposition for you'," Bowrey said. "We hope it will be attractive to them.
"If we are going to achieve joined up government it's one of the things we want to start."
Quelle: Kablenet, 17.12.2003
