UK tails Europe in e-government take-up

Rollouts aplenty but Brits stear clear of online services

UK public sector agencies are failing to entice citizens to use e-government services, new research has found.

Only 11 per cent of Brits downloaded government forms last year, according to research from Eurostat, a European publisher of statistics. The report said 31 per cent of citizens had obtained government information over the web but only five per cent had returned completed forms to the government over the internet.

This compared poorly to other European countries, who had much higher public uptake of government online services.

Finland had the highest take-up of e-government services, with 62 per cent of the public accessing information online. Denmark was rated second with 56 per cent and Luxembourg third with 55 per cent.

At the same time, the report said the UK is the leader of e-government rollouts in the EU.

E-government is one of the goals of an EU strategy to make Europe a 'knowledge-based society', said officials.