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The provision of local services has been transformed as local authorities are to be over 97% e-enabled, minister for local e-government, Jim Fitzpatrick, has announced

The local e-government programme has been running for five years and seen major changes to the face, quality and accessibility of services through the application of effective technology.

Residents can now access services and information at any time.

The transformation has been realised to such an extent that recent research shows that local authority websites beat FTSE 100 company sites on average download speeds and availability.

Minister for local e-government, Jim Fitzpatrick, says: "Over the last five years local government has taken up the challenge to transform the way that citizens are able to access the services.

"It is very satisfying that e-enablement targets have now been reached.

"This is a success story and recent research bears out this transformation.

"After randomly selecting 10 of the best known names across multiple industry sectors in the FTSE 100, we pitted their performance against a range of local authorities across the country.

“On average, local authorities came out on top in terms of the speed of their websites - and achieved over 99% availability figures.

"The challenge for local government now is to ensure that this valuable work continues and that innovation and focus on the needs of local people continue to be at the heart of local e-government."

This marks a significant success story for local e-government which offers innovation and effective service delivery.

Now that the local authorities are e-enabled, the next challenge is to raise awareness even further of the new services available.

A national campaign designed to raise public awareness and encourage take-up will launch early this year and aims to highlight benefits of accessing council services online - including flexibility and convenience, and improved access to information.

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