Govt not utilising web services

12:55 14th October 2008

Local governments are failing to encourage citizens to use their websites, despite the potential to reduce costs and increase efficiency, a new survey from an IT operations firm has disclosed.

Avocent discovered that while 90 per cent of the people questioned had visited their council's web site, only eight per cent of respondents had been actively encouraged to access services online.

In addition, 85 per cent of those questioned admitted that they would utilise internet queries if there was a tracking system in place.

Ben Grimes, Avocent chief technology officer, believes that this poll reflects local governments' inability to take advantage of the potential savings that the internet offers for taxpayers.

He said: "Citizens are enthusiastically accessing information on local government websites, but are not logging their enquiries online because of lack of confidence that they will receive the same service as in person or by telephone."

Last week, Wipro technologies revealed that companies are abandoning traditional IT in tough economic conditions in favour of emerging software.