8 March 2005
The UK has considerably improved its provision of online public services, new research has revealed today.
An EC report on the "sophistication" of public services online ranked the UK third out of 28 European countries (up from eighth last year) behind second placed Austria and e-government leaders Sweden.
According to the BBC, the survey covered 14,000 public bodies in Europe during 2004's last three months.
Graham Colclough of researchers Capgemini told the BBC that Britain's e-government improvements are "something we should be quite proud about".
He added: "People are much more comfortable dealing with the private sector than the public sector.
"If you're online at your local supermarket, you know the experience is relevant to you and know it's going to work - you don't have that same level of comfort with public services so we have to work on that."
The complete top ten e-government ranking is as follows: 1) Sweden; 2) Austria: 3) UK; 4) Ireland; 5) Finland; 6) Norway; 7) Denmark; 8) Iceland; 9) France; 10) Spain.© DeHavilland Information Services plc
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