Using government services online

Types of services
To get an idea of what can and can’t be done online, let’s look at examples. Like all bureaucracies it seems, e-government is good at forms. For example, if you need to apply for something like housing benefit, then the DirectGov site will funnel enquiries towards the Department for Work and Pensions where all 41 pages of form HCTB1 can be downloaded in pdf format (which means any PC will be able to read it), and then either printed out or filled in on screen.

After that it’s still best to visit their offices because it’s dangerous to send things like passports and bank books through the post, and there’s no way to do it electronically.

The site is also good at reports. It only take a few clicks of the mouse to arrive at Ofsted, where it’s easy to search for local schools in a particular area and then download performance reports.

Paying for simple things is straightforward too. Visitors can buy a fishing licence online and go fishing the same day, or renew their TV licence and pay this year’s council tax.

E-government is also good at providing timely information – so long as the systems are in place to make sure that the data is updated. It’s easy, therefore, to find the names of local MPs or local cycle routes.

However, sometimes the information is out of date. For example, searching for an NHS dentist from the DirectGov site took eight clicks before it returns a list of practitioners in the area together with their addresses, telephone numbers and a location map.

Unfortunately, the list didn’t indicate whether or not those dentists were actually taking on new NHS patients, so visitors would still have to phone around.A week after we checked the site, we returned and found it had been updated to show this information. It’s a significant improvement, but it also demonstrates that e-government is still a work in progress.

Elsewhere, the problem is not so much out-of-date information as no information at all – the result of some government departments, local authorities and government partners moving more slowly than others.

In more detail
Right, let’s find out how e-government can help an environmentally conscious householder to do better in terms of recycling, energy conservation and so on.

Start at DirectGov and choose Environment, under the Home and community heading. Because we want to save ourselves money at the same time as helping to save the planet, click on the ‘Claim an energy grant’ link – it’s under the Do it online menu on the right.

At the next screen, click on the Energy grants link to jump off to the Energy Saving Trust website and see what grants and offers are available. Start by clicking on the ‘Search for a grant’ button and then fill in the on-screen form – visitors need to know the name of their current energy supplier, but that’s all.

After a moment or two, the EST site returns a list of grants available, together with details of whether they’re run by the local authority, the government oran energy supplier, together with a contact telephone number and website address.

In many areas, grants of various descriptions are available for cavity wall insulation, draught proofing, loft insulation and renewables – including solar heating. There’s still plenty of research to do, but finding all the information in one place is a real result.