Online UK: State of the art or in a right state?

All Britons could be online by 2005, in line with government targets. That doesn't mean they will be, as Jo Best explains

The government's fourth annual UK Online report was published today – and it paints a mixed picture of the internet in the UK, with Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt now gunning for a 100 per cent connected country by 2008.

Hewitt wants to see every home in the UK with access to the internet in five years time – be it by dial-up, broadband, digital TV, mobile or "other devices" – and the government is going to set up a Digital Inclusion Panel, headed by "a high level industry figure", in order to achieve it.

The panel will be tasked with identifying the groups most at risk of being left out of the digital revolution – the elderly and those on lower incomes being the prime contenders identified in the report – and then develop strategies and make recommendations to help get them online. It is expected that the panel will publish its first report in April 2004 but whether or not it will have powers to make sure something actually gets done is unclear.

It's a laudable aim but the report's own figures reveal that 96 per cent of Britons know somewhere where they can access the internet, 80 per cent of UK citizens have access to a "mass-market broadband solution" and 99.5 per cent of them are 10km or under from a public internet access point.

The 2008 all-online target marks a sea-change in government e-policy. The previous online target was 'internet for everyone that wants it by 2005', which has been left behind in favour of 'you're all having internet whether you want it or not by 2008'. Achieving that figure might be a bit of a trial for the government, given that 57 per cent of adults yet to go online cite their main reason as just not being interested.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman described the number being bandied about as an "aspiration rather than a target". Will the online dream ever become a reality?

It could well do, with or without government help. With the Mobile Data Association predicting internet page impressions via mobile devices will hit 8 billion by the end of the year, a web browser practically standard on most mobiles, the "aspiration" might be easier to attain than even the government might think.

The government's much-discussed target of getting all public services online by 2005 appears to be largely moving in the right direction as well, with Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt announcing at the launch: "Two-thirds of government services are now online, which shows that we're well on the way to our target of putting all services online by 2005." Though it seems only a quarter of the population are ready to take her up on using them.

Intellect's senior programme manager, Beatrice Rogers, said: "[Internet access] is improving – you can't deny that... but take-up and adoption is the important thing to look at. How many go back to use the government services after the first time, how many of the services are good to use?"

It's an occupational hazard for the government that not everyone will want to get online. "Not everyone will want to use [online services] and not will want to use them in the medium they're offered," Rogers added.

A 100 per cent access rate? Maybe. A 100 per cent take-up rate? Unlikely.