A test:

Try making a basic enquiry about your income tax using a ‘variety of channels’.

Channel One - the telephone. Each of three numbers is constantly engaged.

Channel Two - the internet. No evidence of the Inland Revenue site in the top 10 results from Google. When it’s found, the user gets told to enter their user name and password..but hold on, I just want some contact details…

Channel Three - use email. Hold on a mo’, there’s no sign of any email address on any of the correspondence I’ve ever received from the Inland Revenue (to be fair, I have now found an email address on the website).

But perhaps the story explains it all… http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/04/revenue_acts_eds/

If only the lesson of this was ‘don’t let the civil service dictate the terms of e-government but let the ‘customers’ do it…’

Now lets imagine the fuss if someone tried to phone the local council and it was ‘constantly engaged’.

Having said all this, when you do get through to someone, they are incredibly helpful, especially given the pain of paying tax in lump sums.