The local authority National Project to offer environment and community services through Directgov - Whitehall's central e-government portal - has issued an online tool for councils to calculate the number of people visiting their sites from the portal, it was announced on 22 March 2005. The Environment and Community Online Residents e-Services (Encore) initiative has created an evaluation tool to help councils work out how many people would make their way to a local website through Directgov who would not otherwise have done so.
The tool also calculates the value of increased take-up of online channels in terms of time and cost savings. The project estimates that Directgov could send an extra 1.4m additional visitors to council websites.
Julian Bowrey, local e-government programme manager at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, said that the Home and Community section of Directgov, which his department runs in partnership with councils, is proving popular and is to be further developed.
"Citizens are responding positively to the broad and ever increasing range of services and information (Directgov) holds, particularly in the home and community section of the site," he said. "We will continue to work with local authorities to maximise the benefits on offer from Directgov."
Quelle: KableNET, 23.03.2005
