THIS week saw a major step forward in the Prime Minister's campaign to get Britain online with the launch of the web portal www.ukonline.gov.uk.

Rather unkindly dubbed "Pravda.com" in some sections of the media, this attempt to link up Government services online is designed to make getting around public services easier.

Its critics fear that the Downing Street spin factory may have a new outlet, but the stated intention is "to bring access to government information and services direct to people's homes 24 hours-a-day."

The idea, believed to be a world first, is to take Government services and package them together around key events in life such as having a baby or moving house.

And as part of the attempt to make it easier for people to have their say on current issues, there is an area of the website dedicated to public consultation and another, within the same CitizenSpace, which is dedicated to discussion boards on subjects ranging from health to taxation.

Apparently, Tony Blair gets a summary of these discussion comments so those currently posted on the subject of the website itself should provide interesting reading.

Like me, many of the people using the site found it slow and probably not what they expected in its presentation:

"Since ukonline was launched it has been altered twice but strangely the discussion forum is STILL terrible" says one.

"In general the design is poor - clumsy navigation, broken links, illogical flow (example: I go to Moving Home life episode, click on After the Move, and get presented with a list which includes Buying a Home. Intuitive? User-friendly? Accessible?). Where did the 4 million quid go?" another critic complains.

But perhaps the proof that this site does provide some form of freedom of speech is shown by the frustrated answer from one of the staff employed to respond to the criticisms, who snapped: "I find it fascinating that you feel so self important that busy people should spend precious time replying to every one of your replies."

Published: Thursday, February 22