eGov Monitor is reporting that pressure is building for a national campaign to spur demand for eGovernment, with the government likely to be asked to fund a large-scale marketing campaign to promote online public services.
According to the article, only around 15 per cent of the public are presently using eGovernment services, a figure so rubbish that senior officials are banging tables and demanding something should be done.
After three tables collapsed under the strain of their repetitive beats, the top brass have arrived at the conclusion that to boost the current low levels of take-up, the Government must dish out the dosh to a dedicated marketing drive for e-services.
However, recent research funded by the government revealed that although marketing campaigns can effectively promote public awareness of eGovernment services, they don’t always result in actual take-up increasing.
The same research, produced for the e-Citizen National Project on Take-Up and Marketing, came up with the more encouraging news that 46 per cent of adults in England are willing to use online public services.
Although growth in the take-up of some e-services has been promising, the eGov article states that the need to drive up public usage across the board remains a major concern for the UK’s eGovernment programme.
Earlier this month an official from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister reportedly gave an eGovernment conference in Washington, DC, mulling and musing over a possible UK e-Government marketing campaign.
Winning friends and influencing people with every word, Julian “The Diplomat” Bowrey, the ODPM’s local eGovernment divisional and programme manager, is reported to have told delegates to target the campaign at two key groups of potential users.
The first was “grumpy young men who want to pay their parking fines online and want to complain, preferably at three in the morning” and the second was “women who have an interest in local community services”.
Hmmm. Maybe we can think of some other reasons why take-up has been slow.
Government Faces Call for E-Service Take-Up Drive
Local e-Gov site