Brown unveils digital government proposal

Gordon Brown on Monday announced an ambitious programme of digital transformation across the public sector, providing "government on demand", underpinned by broadband access for the entire country.

Speaking in central London, the prime minister set out his vision for a web-led revamp of policymaking and the civil service to make government more transparent and accountable. The government will create a new web "dashboard", dubbed "MyGov", that will enable people to manage a wide range of their interactions with the public sector, from booking doctors' appointments and managing tax benefits to communicating with teachers and ordering a new passport. Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, will lead a new Institute of Web Science, with £30m of public funding, that will look at the economic and legal, as well as technical ramifications, of the Internet.