Government Gateway extended

A new version of the government's Gateway secure portal will go live at the end of June, extending its authentication services to local councils.

The Government Gateway is a secure entry point for communicating with government systems and is crucial to plans for electronic services.

Only departments using the Government Secure Intranet (GSI) can offer services or transact with other departments through the portal.

But the hub and spoke architecture now being tested will allow smaller departments and local authorities to connect to the Gateway via the internet.

Councils will be able to use the Gateway to authenticate citizen access to their own services or transact with central government, says Alan Mather, chief executive of the eDelivery team in the Office of the eEnvoy (OEE).

'There are 700 separate entities and agencies in central government and only about 100 are on GSI.

'This is for the rest - for local authorities, smaller agencies and departments and direct industry connections such as pension providers that may need to deal directly with government.'

The first pilots, in partnership with Sedgemoor and Sunderland councils, will start in August and focus on Council Tax account viewing services.

Local authorities welcome the new development but question how many services will be available in the short term, says Socitm president Jim Haslem.

'There is real need to ramp up the delivery so that they can make many more service lines available within the foreseeable future,' he said.