SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had

The government reckons local authorities are well on track to meet the 2005 deadline of having all their services "electronically enabled".

Local e-Government minister Jim Fitzpatrick (good to know we have one) notes that in March 2002, the average council reported that just 26 per cent of its services were e-enabled, as the government puts it. In March 2005, that figure had risen to 77 per cent.

The latest figures reveal that councils expect 93 per cent of all so-called priority outcomes for local e-government will be at 'amber' or 'green' for implementation by the end of September. (Green means the service will be implemented, and amber means they will be in the process of implementing it.)

Impressive sounding as this is, a quick scan of the graphs in the reveals that while there is a fair amount of green, quite a lot of that 93 per cent is actually in the amber stages.

Priority outcomes are extremely varied and range from the creation of facilities for parents or guardians to apply for school places online, to sharing trading standards information between councils, through to applying to pay council tax online.

The report notes, with some surprise, that those services based on mobile technology seem to be taking longest to get up and running.

Fitzpatrick has published the full report Delivering e-Government Benefits 2005 Status Report, which you can have fun downloading from a link from this page. ®

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth