Every British Citizen To Have a Personal Webpage

Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is about to announce that within a year everyone in Great Britain will be given a personalized webpage for accessing Government services as part of a plan to save billions of pounds by putting all public services online. The move could see the closure of job centers and physical offices dealing with tax, vehicle licensing, passports and housing benefits within 10 years as services are offered through a single digital gateway. [This] 'saves time for people and it saves money for the Government — the processing of a piece of paper and mailing it back costs many times more than it costs to process something electronically,' says Tim Berners-Lee, an advisor to the Prime Minister. However, the proposals are coming under fire from union leaders who complain that thousands of public sector workers would be made jobless and pointed to the Government's poor record of handling personal data. 'Cutting public services is not only bad for the public who use services but also the economy as we are pushing people who provide valuable services on the dole,' says one union leader."

Comments

Re:government services = oil spill

[dangitman]

Hey, let's engineer a couple of oil-spills, too! Jobs for thousands of people, and those people will be performing valuable services!

Hey, let's make specious comparisons and stupid remarks on internet forums!

Re:Surveillance.

[Tassach]

I was going to say, "Cool, one stop identity theft".

I'm not even sure I want to even visit the UK anymore. Shame, as the Tower of London has the best collection of medieval arms and armor in the world, and I was looking forward to seeing it one day.

Anyway, Brits, enjoy your police state. Let us know how it works out for you.

Re:I don't see the issue...

[Anne Thwacks]

The majority of people who work shit jobs do not them because that is the job they are best suited for.

Not here in the UK = its because the good jobs have been destroyed = plenty of well qualified, experienced engineers, chemists, and other technical people are driving trucks, collecting garbage or stacking shelves in the supermarket. Mismanagement of our economy means the jobs that the UK does well have been exported to countries where they are done badly, while we import people to drive down the wages at jobs anyone can do. In short, it is hard to imagine a worse run economy outside of Soviet Russia or Zimbabwe.

As for starting your own business - it currently takes three people to do the paperwork needed by a one man business! Our government's devotion to petty paperwork beats even the legendary Indian Raj (although we do have a good number of Indians to train us in how to do it).