Question: The consultation for your e-democracy proposals comes to an end at the end of this month - what kind of response have you had - has their been plenty of food for thought?

Andrew Pinder: We're starting to get food for thought. It was quiet at the beginning of the consultation because it was August when lots of people, particularly politicians are on summer holiday. We're starting to get a decent number of responses in now and there are a number of online consultations taking place which are leading to some interesting threads of discussion.

Question: So when should we receive your response to these many views that have come through?

Andrew Pinder: We need to digest these views. We probably want to give people a chance to send in their responses even if they miss the deadline of the end of this month they still have a chance to respond. We then want to carry on the debate and take it forward.

Question: Looking at certain aspects of the consultation - first of all participation - how do you see the Internet promoting genuine consultation between politicians, the public and the government. How would you like to see it?

Andrew Pinder: There are more than 400 million people worldwide using the internet and those numbers are growing rapidly. There are more and more people who increasingly see the Internet as their primary source of information and communication, therefore it is important for politicians and government and anyone else who wants to consult with wider society to understand it.

The way we would like to promote participation on the Internet in the UK is for politicians being able to consult their constituents, their constituents having dialogue not just with the politicians but also amongst themselves, so policy gets developed. I believe this could create deeper democracy, with much more involvement than simply a politician getting a letter from a politician and writing back to them.

One of the things we're interested in hearing views on in this consultation is how departments and elected representatives need to build in the views of people in their policymaking process. One of the key underpinning principles of the policy is that of responsiveness. How is responsiveness going to take place in the real world. How are we going to take all these views that come in and consider them and use them to shape government policy.

Question: How effective do you think MPs are in using email and the Internet to communicate with their constituents?

Andrew Pinder: We're talking about two separate things. I think a lot of MPs use email as a major form of communication. They probably reflect how society uses email, some do - some don't, but there are growing numbers who do use it.

The Internet is not a direct communication tool it is a vehicle on which you can post communication, it is almost a slightly detached way of allowing a dialogue to take place. It's a means of facilitating a discussion group in a way that email is more a one to one dialogue.

Question: And so what is your message to those MPs who see the Internet as a distraction or a disruption to their daily lives?

Andrew Pinder: Well, in a sense of course, any sort of outside interruption, whether it is a telephone call or a letter from a constituent or an email coming in, if you're doing something else, this is a distraction. But emails and the Internet are vital means of communication. MPs are in the business of communication so therefore they need to master this piece of technology.

I personally think that it can enhance their jobs and adds to the richness of the news they can get from their constituents and it can make them feel more a part of the community. So I think they should take a deep breath and master the new technology which doesn't take very long - its just like riding a bike or driving a car - you've got to make the effort to feel the benefits.

Question: Some critics of the consultation have said there is an underlying assumption that people are keen to take part in participation and engage in the democratic process but are held back. Others say people aren't held back; they simply don't want to engage in the democratic process because they just don't want to and technology won't change their minds. What would you say to that?

Andrew Pinder: I think that some people tend to take part and others aren't all that keen because they're just not interested. I think technology can play a part in both sides. First of all it can make things easier for those who want to take part but can't for whatever reason.

On the participation side, part of the issue of people not wanting to participate is, in my view, because they are not sufficiently aware of issues or they haven't found a suitable vehicle to put their views across. Some people are much more comfortable communicating electronically. Their style of thinking, their style of talking and writing is very different to my generation.

Many people don't regularly read a newspaper or watch television news programmes, but they do use the Internet. The Internet is therefore a means of communicating with them they're used to using and are happy with. MPs are more likely to hit apathy if they try to communicate with them in a way that they're not used to.

I think the Internet gives the government a great opportunity to provide new levels of access to information for people. It also allows people to have conversations with other people from places which they feel safe in - like they're own home for example. They can sit at home and have conversations with people about policy from a place, which they feel safe. That safe environment I think will encourage people to take a greater part in democratic life.

I think a lot depends on the type of educational and social background and the type of job you do. I read a lot of newspapers, two a day at least. I also listen to the radio regularly and I am an avid receiver of information. But my first point of call if someone asks a question to which I don't know the answer is to go to the Internet. This would have been completely untrue two or three years ago. For example, just before you came in, a general secretary of a trade union called, because they suspect they are the subjects of an Internet based scam. My first instinct was to look it up on Google. So I think that many people - half the population now - are starting to use the Internet regularly. The Internet has become a primary information source and if our political information isn't available there and if our elected representatives don't understand this and accept this, they are losing out.

e-Voting is another issue raised in the consultation. How confident are you that we can have a stable system?

Andrew Pinder: We are currently running eight pilots of different sorts and they were all in their various ways successful.

Question: Were their teething problems concerning the counting process?

Andrew Pinder: No there weren't. As I said we ran eight varying pilots. One of those pilots was based purely around electronic counting and I think there were teething problems which weren't to do with the technology but were more to do with the organisation around that counting.

The various pilots were organised in different ways. Voting closed days in advance in places like St Albans as intended, other polls in places like Liverpool and Sheffield closed on the day of polling at the time the polling station closed. In any new process you always have teething problems and there were one or two teething problems in a polling station in Sheffield for example where lessons have now been learnt and can be ironed out easily. The technology seems to be working fine, we're running another round of pilots next year to refine this technology, but I think we're all pretty confident that by the time we get round to using this technology in a general election in four, five years time it will be a well established technology which everyone will understand and have confidence in.

Question: When do you think we will see electronic voting in a general election?

Andrew Pinder: We need to go through another few rounds of pilots, we will also need to consult properly on this, there will need to be new legislation. So the simple logistics of it will take at least four years. So at some point from around 2006 onwards I think we would feel, we as technocrats as it were, would feel confident that we have systems that worked and would be ready for general elections.

There is a separate issue which is how do you convince people who are not technocrats, which is the vast majority of the population, to understand the technology and feel confident with it. That is an issue for the politicians.

Question: Is there an issue about Internet access at home. Of course people can vote in special booths, but is there an issue of digital divide that the 38 or so percent of people who have access to the internet at home have an advantage over those people who don't have internet access?

Andrew Pinder: I don't think it is as much as a barrier as not being able to vote at all from home. Being able to vote from home is a great benefit to people.

We've put a lot of effort into making access to the Internet available very widely, through our UKonline centres. A lot of libraries now have Internet access. In some pilots we were also able to conduct voting by mobile phone so I think wider access should not be a significant problem. It is as much an issue as owning a car and being able to drive to a polling station.

Question: In the recent local elections postal voting proved to be highly popular whereas e-voting showed just a marginal improvement in voting. Why are we investing in further e-voting pilots when instead we could just focus on extending postal voting?

Andrew Pinder: Let's just pause on that for a second. Undoubtedly the pilots seemed to suggest that postal voting raised turnout. People responded to the postal vote like they would direct mail. Now that's very different to a completely new voting system that is less in people's face. What we did was offer a new service and where it was available 30 per cent of people who voted used that service. Postal voting was offered to 100 per cent of the population it's not surprising that raised turnout. But we do know that when people had a choice a lot of them, a third of them, chose the Internet. This indicates that it is worthwhile offering people this kind of service.

There are some additional advantages of voting over the Internet as well. There are possibilities that voting through the Internet can increase the level of security. It can be a more secure system of voting than postal voting for example. My view is that postal voting does a great job of dragging voting into the nineteenth century but e-voting can drag it into the 21st.

Question: According to a recent survey by Taylor Nelson the UK was ranked 19th out of 27 in terms of the number of people using government services electronically. The survey said that barely 11 per cent of British citizens had gone online to contact government or use government services - what do you make of these findings?

Andrew Pinder: That's actually quite an old survey. We've just been doing some of our own benchmarking which we will be announcing in the middle of November.

Question: How confident are you of reaching the target to get government services online by 2005?

Andrew Pinder: We are pretty confident that we will have government services online by 2005 but the more stretching target is increasing the number of people who use government services online.

Question: The Taylor Nelson survey said there was just 11 per cent currently using government services - how many would you like there to be using government services online by 2005?

Andrew Pinder: Well it will vary according to the service. It is not unreasonable to say that where for example electronic banking is available and used, government services ought to be in that league. We ought to be keeping pace with online banking services. That's the sort of benchmark we are looking at.

Question: What's holding you back in making progress in this online government services area?

Andrew Pinder: We still tend to think of the Internet as a variation on paper and offer the same old services but using html, but that's not right. We've got to use this exciting new technology in a more innovative way.