I have taken this from E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN
- ISSUE 146, 03 OCTOBER 2003 (see below for more details)
Apologies for those who have seen or heard the news elsewhere.
Andrew Coburn
Acquisitions and Cataloguing Manager
Essex CC Libraries
Tel. 01245 244957 (Direct dial)
or 01245 284981 ext. 255
or 01245 244966 minicom
+01: SPRING 'SOFT LAUNCH' FOR GOVERNMENT STORE.
The government's central public web services portal UK Online will shut at the end of February 2004 to make way for 'Online Government Store,' a new service modelled on a department store, E-Government Bulletin has learned.
A source close to the project revealed that the first three months of the Store's life will be billed as a "soft launch", to be followed by a publicity campaign after any early problems are ironed out. The
government's e-Envoy Andrew Pinder is not expected to be in post for the full launch as his current contract ends in April.
The Cabinet Office - the department overseeing the project - is
expected to have up to five applications in place in the Store by March including a system for buying car licence plates from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority and self-assessment tax returns from the Inland Revenue. Other departments known to be collaborating on the project are the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Trade and Industry.
The site is also expected to mark the official demise of the 'life episodes' model as a way to guide citizens to the right part of government. Instead the new site will group services together in six new categories, including 'health and well being' and 'home and community', and may present services across several of these categories to suit a range of expected different types of user such as parents and carers.
One key issue as yet unresolved is the part local government will play in the portal, with debate on whether traffic should flow from council sites to the 'home and community' section or vice versa. Some council representatives argue that because they provide over three quarters of public services they should be the citizen's first port of call.
E-GOVERNMENT BULLETIN The email newsletter on electronic government, UK and worldwide. http://www.headstar.com/egb .
Please forward this free service to colleagues so they can subscribe by emailing [log in to unmask]
for our text plus HTML version, or [log in to unmask] for the plain text version - full details at the end.
Fwd. from:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Diana Rolf, Freman College, SG9 9BT
* Editor ELG News 01763 271818
* Co-owner lis-educ www.cilip.org.uk/elg/
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|