E-Government

E-government

E-government is when governments do the work online or electronically, that’s where the ‘E’ comes from in E-Government as in ‘Electronic’

Due to the increase of households getting access to internet to the point that almost everyone has internet these days, the government has found a new way to expand and has found that moving electronically has greatly increased the simplicity of work, as well as decreasing the amount of paper work.

There are currently 473 different government departments that range from Ofstead to Healthcare services. Most of these departments have become available to get in contact with through the internet now, which is why the amount of people using the UK E-Government service has increased.

One way that people get in contact with the government is when people pay for tax through the HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) using the Government Gateway website.

Another new recent change to a part of the government is the way that people pay for their road tax, which hasn't changed for the past 60 years. People used to be able to pay online for their road tax disk and receive their tax disk through post, but now people still have to pay online, but do not receive their road tax disk at all, but update the police database to tell them you have paid your road tax. This new system has decreased a lot of paper work that people had to physically review as well as decreased the amount of people working. However for some people this is a bad thing as it results in less jobs for people, on the other hand it does decrease the amount for human error in the forms being physically reviewed.

The gov.uk website is currently working on combining all the different departments under its website, for example the Ofstead website is a separate website, is soon to be combined and be under the gov.uk web address.

Each town has its own county council which usually has its own website, there, people can keep updated on any events in the local area or look up the different garbage collection days. You are also able to do things like request a new bin online, as it might have gotten stolen or broken. All these things you would normally have to go to a council and do in person. I haven't personally, but I know that my parents have recently requested a new bin online as the one we used to have had a broken lid, apparently the process online has been reasonably easy, and the bin was delivered the next week.

Another reason why people might come into contact with the government is when people vote, this has allowed a larger amount of people to vote for the next PM, as most people these days are busy with work and do  
n't have time to physically go and vote. However some people think that because of this, theories of conspiracy and hackers being able to completely change the results

E-Government can also use the internet to share information, for example with the recent outbreak of Ebola, the government has issued information on how the UK is currently working on preventing the outbreak of Ebola in the UK, and what to do in case of an outbreak. The government is also able to share download links to forms for different things online, that you would have to normally have to go to your local council to get the specific form.

Some E-Governments have incorporated an E-Petitions system on their websites. There, people can set up different petitions and get people to vote for different topics for the government to review.