Mobile Government

Benefits of Mobile and Wireless Technology

QEII Conference Centre, London

Since returning to power in 1997, the government’s central policy has been the modernisation of public services. The 1999 white paper, ‘Modernising Government’ committed the public sector to meeting the “needs of citizens, not the convenience of service providers”.

Following the publication of the white paper, the government produced several pieces of legislation, guidelines, service reviews and strategy reports, culminating in the “Transformational Government Enabled by Technology” strategy in November 2005. This report set-out the government's plans to reorganise the government departments with the aim of using technology – as it evolves and matures – to reorganise the way in which departments communicate with each other and with the wider public.

To achieve this the government has stated that it is necessary to go beyond e-government – the development of online services – and enable customers to communicate with all sections of the public sector using wireless and mobile technologies, that is via the mobile handset.