13 May 2005
Individual eGovernment accounts could help save billions of pounds every year, according to former Inland Revenue chief Sir Nicholas Montagu.
Speaking in today's Accountancy Age, Sir Nicholas offered his full backing to the ambitious idea that would see every citizen given an individual online account by the government in order to better manage their financial transactions with Whitehall departments.
Such a move would swamp the £21 billion savings as projected in the government's Efficiency Review, Sir Nicholas suggested.
"Think of all the different financial transactions between citizens and central government alone, and if you extend that to the wider public sector and local government you could have really huge efficiencies," he said.
"As things stand there is a digital divide, but once digital TV really takes off everybody will be able to access the internet from their living rooms.
"This is a vision of the future, not something that is immediately practicable. But the government ought to be paving the way now. The power of the head of eGovernment ought to be to ensure that departments develop their systems with this common end in view."
A spokesperson from the Cabinet Office's head of eGovernment, Ian Watmore, said recently: "The IT strategy for government project is looking at the concept of a joined-up citizen account, but it is premature to draw conclusions one way or another."© DeHavilland Information Services plc
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