"It is a good thing that people
visited the two main government websites some 200 million times
last year. However, it’s still unclear what benefits have been
achieved and at what cost. We cannot conclude, therefore, that the
taxpayer is securing value for money."
Amyas Morse, head of the
National Audit Office, 9 December 2011
The Government has not in general measured the
benefits delivered by its two central internet services Directgov
and Business.gov, and the infrastructure service Government
Gateway, which together cost some £90 million a year, according to
a report today by the National Audit Office. Government departments
and other public bodies use Directgov, Business.gov and Gateway to
provide information to the public and to support a range of
government online services.
It is crucial that the Government Digital
Service (GDS), established in March 2011 to implement a new
strategy to deliver all government information services digitally,
builds in the right mechanisms to achieve value for money as it
plans the future of digital shared infrastructure and services.
Today’s report does conclude, however, that it
is likely that Directgov, Business.gov and Gateway have delivered
some cost savings to the public bodies which use them, through the
reuse of common infrastructure. The public and businesses using the
services have also benefited. Directgov (providing government
information for the public) and Business.gov (a family of four
services, one for each of the four nations of the UK, providing
information for businesses) have enabled citizens and businesses to
access information in a more organized way.
Even though financial benefits are not clear,
performance has been managed and most targets have been met. Since
2006, 1,526 government websites have been closed. Determining how
successful the Government has been in closing websites has proved
difficult, however, because the baseline numbers were based on an
estimate and targets have changed over time. At the start, the
Government was unsure how many sites it had and not all bodies have
complied with the policy to close sites.
Publication details:
HC: 1589, 2010-2012
ISBN: 9780102976878