The UK Government wants to develop meaningful online relationships with the British public.

Government is planning to extend its reach even further. Both central and local government are moving away from the real into the virtual and finding even more ways to snuggle up to citizens, keep in touch with them and find out more about them. Tony Blair has long declared the aim of making all government services available electronically by 2005, an ambitious target for an institution more likely to be mired in paper and drowning in red tape than careering carefree down the fast lane of the information superhighway. But the initiatives designed to meet the 2005 deadline are coming thick and fast and soon you might not be able to escape the electronic hand or eye of government. One of the most visible parts of this strategy is the Government Gateway that will eventually be the main site through which people will interact with central government departments. In the early days of the gateway it courted controversy for its insistence on using Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser because it was the only one that supported the types of digital certificates, that can be used as a secure identification system, that it preferred. All local authorities had until 31 July to submit an Implementing Electronic Government statement that would be use to create a national co-ordinated strategy due to be unveiled in the Autumn. Now many local authorities are turning to kiosks and information points in a bid to reach out to those people who do not have access to a PC or a TV that has a web link.