Martha Lane Fox To Lead Directgov Review

The government’s digital champion, Martha Lane Fox, has launched an online review into Directgov – the government’s central web portal.

Lane Fox will be helped by a small group of advisers from business and the public sector, but is also asking for public feedback on how to make the government’s digital services more efficient before 3 September 2010.

“It’s not often you get the opportunity to step back and assess how things should be different, so I’m interested in all ideas – particularly the radical and off-the-wall,” she said.

Directgov is the UK government’s digital service, designed to bring information and practical advice about public services together in one place. The site is visited by 26 million people every month, looking for advice on anything from booking a driving test to finding a local NHS clinic.

The review covers four main areas, asking what central government’s objectives in digital delivery should be, who should do what, how the platform should be shared and what key trends the government should consider when designing digital services. Responses can be added to the Directgov website, or emailed privately to directgovreview@betransformative.com.

Digital champion

Martha Lane Fox was asked by the coalition government in June to stay on in her role as digital champion, focusing on ways for the government to save money by taking services online.

“This work is about more than putting more information online,” said Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude at the time. “It’s about reducing the cost of government and at the same time really improving the delivery of public services and making them more easily accessible and easy to use.”

Lane Fox went on to launch a bid to get around ten million of the UK’s poorest households online, intended to save millions on paper-based access to government services. However, it was recently revealed that she has been given no budget for the project, which she intends to complete before the end of 2012.

Home Access scheme scrapped

Last week it was also announced that the government’s Home Access scheme, which has helped more than 200,000 low-income families get computer and Internet access, will be scrapped when the funding runs out. According to Directgov, there are now only 12,000 grants remaining, and the focus for these will be to help families with children who have special educational needs or disabilities.

The £300 million Home Access scheme was first launched in September 2008, with the introduction of two year-long pilot studies in Oldham and Suffolk. The pilots targeted well-off families that did not use technology for learning or who felt it had no educational value.

At the time, former schools minister Jim Knight said “Bridging the digital divide is not just about giving parents who cannot afford home IT a financial leg-up – it is about selling the educational benefits of home computer and Internet access far better to those that can afford it.”

Organisers are now advising any families with an application form for the Home Access scheme to complete it and send it back immediately, for a chance to get one of the final remaining grants.