Edinburgh Napier University

  A Scottish pilot to test the potential of iDTV as a medium for providing public sector information and delivering public services was launched on 7th September 2004. The pilot ran for 6 months and involved collaboration between the Scottish Executive, West Lothian Council, Dumfries and Galloway Council, Young Scot, NHS Scotland (Health Education Board), and StartHere.

The evaluation of the pilot was designed to assess the effectiveness of iDTV to improve access to information and services. Although all sections of the pilot were viewed or used, use of the service was very limited. This may be adue to difficulty in accessing the service, the slow speed or cost of access, the scope of content, and the limited extent of service user recruitment.The small number of users interviewed found the service interesting, useful and easy to use and potentially an important addition to the provision of electronic services. However, they also reported that the service content had a narrow scope, when compared to the Internet.

The study concluded that iDTV is likely to become an important complimentary platform for delivering electronic public services in the future, and that citizens and service users are interested in accessing information and making transactions over the iDTV platform. However, the provision of public services via iDTV was still in its infancy, when this study took place, and was not sufficiently advanced to support widespread provision and use.