bids give some clues as to the important elements in the development of e government

services. The UK government has also allocated  350 million in Invest to Save funding

to councils for projects aimed at joining up local services and making them more 

accessible to citizens. In February 2002, the government announced a series of projects

to pilot new methods of voting. Among the projects is a proposal to trial Internet voting

from home, local libraries and council run information kiosks.

A KPMG study E government for All

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indicates that of the reasons given for not

using the Internet, over half of respondents (54 percent) said that not having a computer

was the key consideration. In the UK, the launch of the People's Network in public

libraries will provide a minimum of six computers in all libraries in the UK with free

Internet access. Surprisingly, when addressing points concerning access, national 

commentators rarely pick this up. It is a point, which is not lost, however, in the public

library community, and in local government. 

Perhaps the biggest problem facing the UK, however, is one of infrastructure. The UK

has the most competitive narrowband telecommunications in Europe, but its broadband

availability and competitiveness is poor. Oftel in May 2001 estimated that ten million

homes now have an Internet connection, a rise from six million in May 2000, and 8.5

million in February 2001. Another report by Jupiter MMXi, however, estimates that 33

million Britons were online by June 2001. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has

identified a 7.8 percent increase in Internet use between January and October 2001. The

ONS puts the number of homes with Internet access at 9.7 million, following a 7.8 

percent increase in users between January and October 2001. Its survey found that

although  dialling up  constitutes 98 percent of the total market, there was a rise in

broadband users, and continuous access packages grew by 212.2 percent. The ONS

publishes an index of Internet connectivity every month

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.

On the more traditional aspects of social exclusion, Andrew Pinder in his paper pre 

sented at the Public Library Authorities Conference, Torquay, 18 September, 2001,

referred to the fact that three percent of the population was illiterate, and 23 percent

had problems reading. That, he said, presented real problems in rolling out the 

knowledge economy. 

The United States of America

The United States emerged as a visionary leader in the Accenture Report. One reason

for this may be the emergence of government portals, which are the most significant

development observed. Government portals are now emerging as the means of bringing

some order and citizen centred functionality to government online. Sites such as

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