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How will the government get us to use its e-services? In his first interview since taking up the post of head of e-government, Ian Watmore tells Michael Cross about his strategy

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Plans for a revolution in the way government runs its IT systems are to be set out in a strategy document by Ian Watmore, Whitehall's first chief information officer, later this month. In his first interview since taking up his post as head of e-government last month, Watmore told the Guardian that he hoped to publish a "coherent plan of action ... towards the end of October".

Public agencies, trade unions and computer firms - as well as e-government wonks - will want to see how Watmore intends to go about making government more efficient through IT. There will also be much interest in Watmore's strategy for completing the current e-government programme, which requires all public services to be "e-enabled" by the end of next year.

Watmore said he is more interested in getting people to use e-services than in dogmatically ensuring that every single service goes online. "What we want to do next is to get a high take-up and high impact of services that really matter and which touch people's lives." But he said the 2005 target is still "business as usual" - and in any case, it is not in his power to change a directive from the prime minister.

However, Watmore, who was head of management consultancy Accenture's UK operation, stressed he is open to ideas. "My first priority is to listen to what the world out there wants me to do."

Last week, he met representatives from local authorities, who claim to run two-thirds of public services, yet have little formal contact with the Cabinet Office's e-government programme.

One early set of decisions is what to do about the central e-government infrastructure that the Cabinet Office unit has inherited from its predecessor, the Office of the e-Envoy.

Watmore revealed he is considering abandoning a key central service, a super-secure e-government nerve centre called "true north". The project has been on hold since Andrew Pinder, the last e-envoy, cancelled an £83m contract with IT services firm ITNET in June.

True north, at two secret locations about 100 miles from London, was supposed to host three existing Cabinet Office e-services: the "knowledge network" briefing service, the Government Gateway, which routes secure transactions with and between government agencies, and DotP, a content-management system for government websites.

The long-term plan was for government websites to converge around DotP, hosted at true north, for efficiency, security and economy. This collapsed amid a dispute between ITNET and the Cabinet Office over delivery dates and schedules. ITNET told its shareholders last month that it had lost £24m from the abandoned contract and would seek redress.

Watmore said he had not decided whether to find another contractor for true north. "We're not re-procuring at the moment. We need to continue to provide these services in a cost-effective way: how we do that is up for grabs." In the meantime, core services will be run by a mixture of contractors such as Atos Origin, which hosts the Government Gateway.

Watmore said he was committed to strengthening another centrally run service, the new e-government portal Directgov, which the Cabinet Office launched earlier this year. The site's value, he said, is to give an appearance of joined-up government even though most of its content is provided by separate agencies.

He conceded that public awareness of the site is still too low, but ruled out a major advertising campaign. "I think it's a brand that will grow over time and, as we get more franchises involved, it will go up its own maturity curve."

The debate about the Cabinet Office's role in services such as Directgov and DotP is significant because its outcome will decide whether e-government in Britain is run by Whitehall or local government. Some councils claim that local portals are a more natural starting point for citizens and businesses.

However, one of true north's architects, Alan Mather, head of the Cabinet Office's e-delivery team, last week made the case for centralisation. Mather estimated that the government has more than 4,000 websites, containing some 5m pages. "That is costing half a billion pounds a year just to keep them ticking over."

The result, said Mather, is that citizens can't find their way around. "There may be room for one 'government' site on a browser favourites list, but the odds are it won't be yours," he told an audience of council IT chiefs. He urged public bodies to take the "Google challenge" - type into the search engine what they do best, and see if it points to their website. "If you're not in the top 10, then why do you have a website? It means that 10 other people are doing it better."

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