Online services need incentives

Using an incentive scheme to improve the take-up of online government services would be more effective than making them mandatory, say experts.

The National Audit Office report on the Criminal Records Bureau, published last week, recommends departments develop incentives to encourage citizens to interact over the web rather than by more traditional routes.

But a key recommendation of the Whitehall Efficiency Review being conducted by Sir Peter Gershon will be that online transactions become compulsory for the 'e-capable', such as business and higher-rate taxpayers, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Jeremy Beale, head of ebusiness at the CBI, says the main issue with online services is that they are not user friendly.

'We would prefer government to use incentives rather than penalties,' he said.

'Government needs to be a lot better at providing e-services to be in the position to say people have to interact online. It needs to make sure if it does start making requirements that the systems work beautifully and that they work well for the user.'

Beale says it would be a positive step if the services could be made to work and there were adequate incentives, particularly for smaller companies.

Government IT expert Jim Norton says any incentives would not necessarily have to run forever.

'It is just a question of breaking the barrier and changing people's behaviour,' he said.

'Incentives could just be for the first or second time the service is used because once people find using the system easier it won't be necessary. They could be directly financial or could be more marginal such as guaranteed quicker payback of VAT,' said Norton.

Tory shadow Paymaster General Howard Flight says he has grave reservations about compulsory online filing of income tax returns because of reliability issues and the question of consumer choice.

'It should be for businesses to decide whether they want to run the risk of a paperless transaction leaving them unable to produce hard copy as evidence,' he said.