Submission + - Every British Citizen to Have a Personal Webpage 1
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 benefit 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."
