News Release

14th June 2004

"E-GOVERNMENT AS WASTEFUL AS THE REAL THING"

Shadow Trade and Industry Minister Michael Fabricant has today accused the Government of presiding over a 'scandalously expensive failure' following new research showing that £1.5 billion of taxpayers' money has been wasted on E-government websites that do not work.

Research published by Transversal, the e-service software company, has revealed that Tony Blair's E-Government websites are as wasteful as the real thing.

It shows that 60 per cent of Government websites are inefficient at resolving customer queries, and 75 per cent of customer-related management projects fail to deliver any measurable return on investment.

Mr Fabricant said: "Even in cyberspace, the Government has an uncanny knack of wasting taxpayers' cash. It really ought not to be rocket science to pay for licences and other services through the web. Firms like Waitrose and Amazon.com have been doing it for years.

"With the expensive flop of the office of e-envoy, which is being discontinued, with e-dispatch boxes for Government ministers being abandoned within months of multi-million pound trials, this latest disaster is not surprising.

"The Government's has set a self-imposed deadline to get all ministerial departments operating effective e-services by 2005. Will it now throw more taxpayers' money at the problem or will it simply try and sweep this disaster under the carpet?

"Simple, cost effective self service applications need to be implemented if e-Government is to have a real chance at success. The Government needs to get a cross-departmental grip on the delivery of web-based services to the public and learn from the mistakes made in the private sector. Contracts need to be clearly defined between Government departments and web providers just as in the private sector."