Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government’s digital services report

This report is about the government’s strategy for moving public services to ‘digital by default’, published in November 2012. The strategy incorporated data on 1,298 users from a government survey in August 2012 as data on citizens and small and medium‑sized businesses use of, and willingness to engage with, public services online was limited. To give the Committee of Public Accounts assurance about the digital strategy, and that its approach to assisting those who are offline to use digital services is based on sound assumptions about the preferences, capabilities and needs of users in England, we commissioned independent research. This included a face-to-face survey of over 3,000 people, an online survey of 130 businesses and eight focus groups in England.

The government started to move to online public services in 2000. In December 2011, we reported on the key developments over the previous decade. While we found progress in making it easier for people to find government information and services online, we did not find robust data on the costs or benefits of spending. Therefore we could not conclude that the government had achieved value for money in working towards its objectives.

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