Local and provincial governments always claim to be closer to their citizens, in more than just a geographical sense, than their counterparts in national government can ever be.

Around the world, e-government initiatives are being implemented, which may not only streamline administration, but also reinvigorate the democratic process.

In the Canadian province of Manitoba, for example, the Better Systems Initiative (BSI) will make a citizen's data available to all govrnment agencies through a single access point from the first time it is entered. There will be no need to re-enter it each time when they to communicate with another government agency.

Meanwhile, more than a quarter of the population of the Danish city of Naestved is currently receiving online services. These include traffic information, an interactive local telephone directory, distance learning, tourist information, an electronic map, business directories, shopping, and public information. The city has also implemented an e-procurement system.

A good example of a government portal is the Access Washington portal set up by Washington State in the US. The portal provides more than 150 online services for citizens, businesses, the state's own employees and those of other governments and agencies.

Citizens can, for example, file and pay business taxes, file for unemployment insurance, order vital records and state parks permits, or request an electrical inspection. They can also obtain criminal histories, apply for college, manage state retirement accounts, and access hundreds of government information sources.

With Access Washington's tens of thousands of pages, making sure that users get the most out of the portal is a high priority. "There are lots of questions that come up from residents about how to use the site," says Bo Wandell, president of SafeHarbor, a company which provides technical and customer support for the site.

"We develop solutions that allow end-users to help themselves with technical questions using the web, as opposed to calling on the telephone," he explains.

Mr Wandell says that in the US, according to industry analysts such as the Yankee Group, every time someone contacts an organisation by phone, it costs between $25-33 per query to provide that capability.

"We can provide a web-based solution for about $1.50 per query," claims Mr Wandell. "It also produces a much better experience for the end-user."

In the UK, the government has set a target for all central and local government services to be deliverable electronically by 2005. A survey of UK local authorities published at the end of last year by Metastorm, a supplier of e-government software, found, however, that the majority of authorities believed the government targets to be unrealistic.

Lack of budget was given as the main barrier to meeting the deadlines.

A recent report by the New Local Government Network suggested that UK local authorities should be aiming to achieve, by 2005: transformation of the quality of access; e-enablement of consultation and communication; re-engineering of selected back-office functions.

One UK local authority that is re-engineering its back-office functions is Nottingham City Council, which has acquired J.D. Edwards' Express for e-Government enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Assisted by consultants Deloitte & Touche, the council took only eight months to implement the first phase of the ERP system in April 2001.

"The funding for the project was supplied entirely by the council," points out Ian Brandwood, assistant director of Nottingham's City Treasury.

The council has also started projects to provide citizen-centric services to its population. "We're in the process of implementing a new benefits and council tax system, which is web-enabled," says Mr Brandwood. "That's due to go live in spring next year."

Nottingham is considering how the majority of its users would want to access services. "It's not only about internet access: it's whether we should have local booths, perhaps in libraries and tourist information centres," says Mr Brandwood.

The council already has a website, but this provides information on Nottingham's services, rather than enabling transactions between the citizen and the council. Mr Brandwood believes the development of the website as a transactional portal is still some way ahead.

In January, another UK authority, Bracknell Forest Borough Council, launched an e-government portal, which had been developed with software providers Novell and Metastorm. On the portal, citizens can view their personal council tax accounts, apply for discounts, or change their details. They can also make payments by direct debit, or with a credit or debit card.

The council can now be contacted at any time of day or night. Since the launch of the portal, 40 per cent of requests have been made outside normal business hours, 25 per cent of such enquiries occurring during the weekend.

"There is no longer the need for citizens to stand in queues at the payment office, or spend time on the telephone asking for clarification on rumours of land development projects," says Gordon Mitchell, Bracknell Forest's chief executive.

Services which councils such as Nottingham and Bracknell Forest are currently providing in the UK barely scrape the surface of e-government. Will the arrival of more widespread broadband internet access open the floodgates?

Ken D'Rosario, public services manager at Alcatel eBusiness Solutions, believes broadband is only part of the answer. "The most immediate solution would be to put in place a broadband network that links every city, town, village and hamlet in the UK," he says. If broadband were made available at a central point in each of these communities, he suggests, it could lead to the development of local hot-desking centres. People could then work from those rather than at home or in a distant office.

Ray Brecon of Computer Science Corporation's e-business division believes that broadband itself is not the main issue in the UK. "What's blocking progress is the cost of being online," he says. "We need unmetered internet access, and the local loop issue [competitive access for broadband services to the last mile of the phone network] resolved."

However, widespread access to broadband services and technology advances will not herald the arrival of local e-government, says Richard Punt, head of e-business at consultancy Deloitte & Touche. "The dawn will break when customers are provided with information relevant to their needs, and are able to complete all their government business at the same time," he says.