UK must increase e-commerce, e-governance: EU research |
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Tue, 17 May 2005 19:30
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The UK government needs to increase its online presence if it wants to catch up with the governments in other European nations. A new research by the European Union has revealed that the UK is much below the average usage of e-government services of other European states.
The survey involved measuring the extent of Internet usage, such as obtaining information, downloading forms, applying online, etc. The statistical office of the EU reports that Sweden, Norway, Germany, Finland and Iceland are ahead of the UK in the number of individuals interacting with various government agencies online.
It lags behind most European states also in the number of businesses obtaining information and transacting with the government online.
The report says only 31 percent of businesses interact with the government online for getting information, etc. In this category it doesn’t compare favourably with nations like Italy (51 percent), Lithuania (63 percent), Poland (57 percent) and Sweden (90 percent).
| In the number of individual transactions with the government, the UK is at an embarrassing 3 percent (same as Slovenia). In contrast, Luxembourg (21 percent), Denmark (14 percent), Estonia (13 percent) and Germany (7 percent) appear to be cyber-streets ahead of the UK.
Broadband connectivity was also a weak area for the UK which reported only 16 percent of British households with a broadband connection, which was much less than the Estonian average.
The only redeeming numbers to come out of this survey are for individual Web users: an encouraging 63 percent of the UK’s population accesses the Internet. However, the UK government will have to provide more access to the Internet as currently only 87 percent of businesses are connected.
Statistics for the rest of the European Union reveal a mixed picture of states ranging from the cyber-savvy to the electronically backward. An overall picture says that 11 percent of European businesses are still not using the Internet. 50 percent of the majority that do use the Internet are still on dial-up connections. A surprising 50 percent of all individuals do not access the Web.
Age was perhaps a major factor in the findings. The highest level of usage was found among people in the age group of 16 – 24 years.
The survey covered all the European Union member states as well as Iceland, Norway, Romanis, Bulgaria and Turkey.
Scandinavian nations appear to be the most cyber-savvy of all with Sweden, Finland and Denmark all boasting 70 percent or more of businesses that were online via a broadband connection.
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