Going soft on change

Having been elected in 1997 on a manifesto that argued the case for improved public services, the Labour government issued a white paper in early 1999 entitled `Modernising Government´. It was an ambitious plan of reform that foresaw a leading role for IT as a critical element in providing new forms of electronic service delivery. The intention was that the government would wholeheartedly enter the Information Age, with `innovation being the new watchword.