Catalogue description Central Information Technology Unit: Government Direct Initiative Digital Records: Digital Records formerly in CAB 172

Some of the responses to the Green Paper were received in electronic form as e-mails and attachments. Others were received in paper form and were then scanned by CITU to obtain tagged image file format (TIFF) images.

The documents in this series were transferred to the PRO in either PostScript or TIFF format from which a viewing copy was generated in portable document format (PDF). The documents remain unchanged but an instruction to users appears at the foot of each page together with a header and footer giving the file's series, piece and page number along with notification of copyright. For presentational purposes the final report published on CD ROM is displayed in its original software formats.

In November 1996 the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster the Right Honourable Roger Freeman MP presented to Parliament a green paper entitled government.direct; A Prospectus for the Electronic Delivery of Government Services. The green paper was published simultaneously in both paper and electronic form. Electronic publication was made by publication on the Central Information Technology Unit web-site and also through the sale of copies on CD ROM. The green paper set out a strategy for a new way of delivering central government services across the United Kingdom. These services included providing information, collecting taxes, granting licences, administering regulations, paying grants and benefits, collecting and analysing statistics, and procuring goods and services. The strategy included new ways of working and sharing information between government departments and agencies which would improve efficiency. This would involve new forms of service delivery which would be more efficient, more accessible and more convenient. They would also appear quite different from the arrangements currently in use.

However, these new forms of service delivery would only work if a substantial proportion of the public (both businesses and citizens) found them attractive. The Government wanted as far as was practicable, to tailor the new types of service to public demand. The purpose of the green paper was to seek public reaction to the service delivery arrangements it described. Throughout the paper questions are posed to indicate the issues on which the Government would particularly welcome comment.

It was intended to follow publication with a series of pilot schemes, so that members of the public could try the new forms of service delivery for themselves. The reactions to these schemes would shape the arrangements which would be launched on a national scale.