Watmore Interview
The Head of e-government, Ian Watmore, is interviewed today by BBCi:
“The getting 100% of services online target is something I inherited and the job is pretty much achieved. The real question is ‘where do we go from here?’”
The answer, he says, is moving on from the glut of information currently available to fewer and better targeted services.
“Let’s make them as good as we can and, most importantly, let’s move to the point where most people are using them rather than some people are using them.”
This follows on from an interview in the Guardian a couple of weeks back - his first since taking up the post:
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.
And another in Computing magazine where he outlines the differences between his post (the ‘CIO of government’) and that of e-Envoy.
All this is laying the ground for a major new e-government strategy document due at the end of the month.
