Management Toolkit

Government Gateway gets room for growth

Kablenet.com

Published: 03 Oct 2007 13:09 BST

The rollout of a new version of the Government Gateway will allow for increased traffic and more e-enabled public services.

A partnership comprising the Cabinet Office e-Delivery Team, Atos Origin and Microsoft have launched Version 2.0 of the Government Gateway.

Called enGage, the partnership has upgraded the Gateway to cater for access to an increased range of electronically delivered public services. Announcing the launch on 2 October, 2007, Atos Origin described the project as the "biggest and most important application release" since the Gateway first went live in 2001.

With over 11 million users, the Gateway provides 125 secure e-enabled services across 12 central government departments, 14 government agencies and 35 local authorities. It also enables the public to communicate and undertake transactions with government, such as making tax returns or pensions forecasting.

The new platform includes a scalable transaction engine that can be extended to increase capacity, not only in terms of users but in the number of services provided through the Gateway.

There is also a white-label user interface for government departments that want to retain their own branding. A spokesperson for Atos Origin told GC News: "Say you're a council and you don't want to show that [the service] is coming through the Gateway, you can design it so it will look as if it is coming through the council. It helps in making sure people know who they're liaising with."

Work has also been carried out to improve performance and reliability.

Director of the Cabinet Office e-Delivery Team, Chris Haynes, claimed the Gateway had become a linchpin in the delivery of public-sector e-services.

"We have achieved this by focusing on the quality of the service provided to our customers, while keeping up with ever-changing requirements to ensure the Gateway is well positioned for the future and continues to be at the heart of the Transformational Government agenda," he said.