The next step for egovernment is to move away from dedicated web sites to a mix of public and private sector content more appealing to citizens, says analyst Gartner.

Councils are working towards the target to have all services online by 2005. The next phase, up to 2010, is to look more closely at what it really means to be citizen-centric, says Gartner vice president Andrea Di Maio.

'An important element will be to go further than the concept of a single portal and accept the fact that the citizen might be willing to access public services through a number of online channels - their bank, telephone company or newspaper, for example,' he said.

'We have already seen signs of this in Germany, where some of the state portals carry a mix of private and public sector information and services.'

Citizens don't go online specifically to interact with government, so services will need to be more closely related to private sector content.

'The citizen might be online for another reason and if reminded that they need to interact with government, by their bank for example, they are willing to do that too. The user doesn't care if information comes from the public or the private sector,' said Di Maio.

Converging technical standards across both sectors means interoperability will be less of an issue than business processes.

'Use of XML-based standards and web services are all positive signs but we will still have to overcome the process issue. Integration with the private sector already exists in places but the value has to be clear enough for people not to resist,' said Di Maio.

A second key area of development is e-democracy, says Di Maio. E-voting and online consultation will change the process of policy-making.

'At the moment the process starts with a proposal, followed by consultation with a number of established organisations such as unions and industry associations.

'E-democracy will capture online communities which are very often transient in nature, forming spontaneously on the net because they want to comment on a particular policy and potentially drawing much more widely than industry associations,' said Di Maio.