US Edition Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, today outlined a vision of a digital Britain in which every citizen will have access to superfast broadband and a personalised, online “dashboard” of government services.
Announcing the launch of “MyGov”, the Prime Minister said that government services in 2020 would be akin to internet banking or online shopping. He said a single website would offer people the chance to “manage their pensions, tax credits or child benefits; pay their council tax; fix their doctors or hospital appointment and control their own treatment; apply for the schools of their choice and communicate with their children's teachers; or get a new passport or driving licence - all when and where they need it”.
Mr Brown also announced that £30 million would be spent on establishing a new Institute of Web Science to be jointly headed by the founder of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and Prof Nigel Shadbolt, who was involved in the recent release of government data via data.gov.uk. Martha Lane-Fox, the co-founder of Lastminute.com, will also help Mr Brown to establish a new Digital Public Services Unit in the Cabinet Office in Downing Street. The aim, he said, was to make sure that the “4 million people who are among the heaviest users of government services - but who have never used the internet – [are] at the heart of our strategy rather than letting them literally slip through the digital net.”
Faster and more widely available access would, Mr Brown argued, foster a new approach to government from both citizens and public servants. He was criticised, however, for supporting the Digital Economy Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, because it threatens to disconnect filesharers. Campaigners such as the Open Rights Group accused Mr Brown of making online services central to government while also threatening to remove a number of people's web access.
Mr Brown offered neither any new funding nor a timescale for universal broadband provision, although the Government has already announced that 90 per cent of homes will have access to “superfast” connections by 2017. The Conservatives said that they had already made a similar promise, and attacked the Government's fortchoming £6 per phone line tax.
Downing Street also announced its own iPhone application, offering users quick access to the latest "news, video and audio from the Downing Street website".