Public sector staff are unwilling to use e-government services for financial transactions, although most are quite happy to conduct similar transactions on commercial websites, according to a snapshot poll.

The survey, carried out among central and local government workers at the Government Computing 2003 conference earlier this month, found just 14% of respondents said they were prepared to do electronic transactions such as bill payments or child support claims. Only 7% said they would be happy providing their credit card details to online government services.

In contrast, nearly all (97%) were prepared to use private sector websites for transactions such as online banking and purchasing.

Sara Nicholls, sales and marketing director for the public sector at LogicaCMG, which commissioned the report, said the figures highlighted a lack of trust in e-government services.

Despite the small sample size, just 50 respondents, Glyn Evans, head of e-services at Camden Council and chair of Socitm’s information age government group, said acknowledged that trust is a concern.

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