Brits learning from the Continent? Authority, digi gov wheezes and the Autumn Statement Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne included several uses of technology in Wednesday’s Autumn Statement and Spending Review. As part of a major expansion, the Government Digital Service will develop a common payment system on gov.uk, so that by 2020 citizens will have the option of paying online for every central …
I've used several services recently; car tax renewal, driving licence renewal, worked very well indeed even from overseas. The local council registration also works well. If they can provide the same user experience, with appropriate security for other services, then I would say good luck to them.
However, when I last tried to submit a Tax return, it was significantly less satisfactory. In fact, I gave up half way through, downloaded the forms, filled them in and popped in an envelope which I dropped off at a local post box, all in about half the time that I had spent trying unsuccessfully to enter the details online.
We will see what we see.
Britain’s polite disdain for authority may be a core element of national character, but sometimes it has a price-tag.
Personally, I'm not sure it is just "disdain for authority". I think one of the main reasons people don't trust our government is that they have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Whether it's slipping legislation in through the back door, fiddling expenses, or just generally not speaking the truth, politicians seem to find ways of proving that we cannot trust them on a regular basis.
I think the mistrust is based on much more serious abuses than those you mention. It is things like: using the police to infiltrate political campaign groups and unions (since the 1970's and probably before), trying to replace the rule of law with arbitrary power for politicians (statements like "It would be totally irresponsible of government to allow the legal system to dictate to us on matters as important as terrorism", and "For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'"), stop-and-search, giving private companies their own police (CoLP), etc.
Interesting, but could it have more to do with Britain still being more of a class society than any other western European county. The small is interesting too, as aunt Hillary said, the USA is not Denmark, like the poor idiot at Fox News too, Denmark is a small country. I suppose, with that logic, Botswana should be twice as good as Denmark. Suppose that has more to do with education, or as the Americans prefer to say "socialism". Poor Americans, look at what the Republicans have brought up for the presidency.
Thanks for the responses. Lars - the idea of class being a factor in mistrust is an interesting one - guessing you mean 'lions led by donkeys' where the majority have an assumption that the leadership class are incompetent and/or in it only for themselves?
On 'small country', I should probably have qualified that by saying 'small country of roughly equivalent wealth and development to the UK'. When I talk to civil servants working in the Welsh and Scottish NHSs (healthcare is fully devolved, ie run from Cardiff and Edinburgh not London), they say they find it easier to get things done than colleagues in England because they can more easily get everyone around the table, and much smaller budgets provide a strong reason for everyone to co-operate.
I have to say I find the Irish Revenue Commissioners online services "ROS" and "PAYE Anytime" extremely easy. It works quite similar to online banking. You've also got the ability to send/receive all of your correspondence, track requests and so on.
I filled in a tax return online and it was a hell of a lot easier than paper and calculated everything for me. They also incentivise you to file online.
I recently applied for a passport card here too, which was done using an iOS or Android app. This is like an extension to your passport which gives you an ID card that looks rather like any other EU countries' national equivalents. It's non compulsory but means you can travel without a paper passport in the EEA and EU.
The application process was entirely done through to app, including taking a selfie for the pic.
A single, secure email service for every state service mightn't be that useful. I would prefer an SMS notifications to log into a specific service to check correspondence.
A single email account for everything is a single point of failure and potentially a treasure trove for hackers too.
Also, I would have concerns about cross over. There are different state agencies many of us want to deal with sepertately. For example do you really want your medical history, parking fines, tax information, welfare information, passport details, and tons of other highly sensitive information all sitting on one electronic location ? It's a hack risk and a data mining risk by Big Brothers of various sorts.
"While that may not sound much in the context of the government’s £756bn budget for 2015/16, he had committed to avoiding cuts and in some cases increasing spending in health, pensions, defence and overseas aid, altogether worth a third of spending. Even for Osborne, £2bn a year is real money".
As a pensioner, let me say that George OSBORNE has NOT increased pensions at all.
What he has 'given' to pensioners in the one hand, he has 'taken' back with the other hand.
Each year pensions are 'increased' by 2.5%,BUT, V.A.T has increased by that very same amount since the Tories came to power in 2010,therefore, each & EVERY year since then that same 2.5% pension increase is taken back through V.A.T.
The 'NET' result is a ZERO increase n& pensions reduced in value from INFLATION.
In effect, pensioners have NOT been 'protected',just like the rest of the population haven't,despite assertions to the contrary from certain groups that hate paying taxes like the IFS or Taxpayers Alliance.
Ros ALTMAN & George OSBORNE are SHAMELESS.
I've spotted a flaw...
>>>>>>> Ofcom says 85 per cent of adults have internet access.
and
>>>>>>> For the self-assessment tax return filing season that ended last January,
>>>>>>> 85.5 per cent of individuals used the online service.
Leading me to think that 500,000 of us completed an online tax return through some other medium or version of the internet that nobody in the IT sector has heard about.
Also, even if it is "a rounding error" (love that one) then it shows that 100% of tax return completers use the service.
R
Whilst there has to be some doubt taken over the statistics (for example, 85% of adults having internet access must be an educated estimate of some sort), those two figures are not contradictory. The 85.5% of individuals used the online self-assessment service will be only out of those who did complete a tax return (i.e., those not on PAYE), whereas the 85% figure refers to the entire UK adult population. All we can really infer from this is that if you're self-employed, you're more likely to have internet access (and we can't even say that with any certainty as one stat is referring to a one-time use of the internet and the other concerns regular internet access).
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