Edward Leigh

Government departments should make sure that their forms are quick and easy for members of the public to fill in, a committee of MPs has reminded Whitehall officials.

A report published on Tuesday by the public accounts committee said officials should aim to reduce the bureaucratic burden faced by citizens when they interact with the state.

"For citizens, filling in forms is one of the most frequent ways that they interact with government, and how forms are set out can have an important effect upon perceptions of public services," said the committee.

The report added that citizens "should not normally have to supply information about themselves to a department that they have previously supplied".

And it also called for greater coordinated use of IT systems and online forms to simplify systems.

"Departments should seek to improve electronic communication between themselves so that information submitted to one organisation can, wherever appropriate, be shared with others," said the report.

"As well as offering benefits to the citizen, such collaboration provides the scope for improved efficiency and reduced back office functions."

The MPs also said that Whitehall should "demonstrate greater commitment" to meeting the 2005 deadline for the online provision of all forms.

They called for "clear strategies", with milestones and targets, to ensure departments achieve the government's target.

"Not all the case study departments were confident of meeting the government-wide target for all their forms to be available online by the end of 2005, or the related aim to achieve, for key services, high levels of electronic use by the same date," the report said.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh reminded departments that they "have an obligation to make sure that their forms are quick and easy for members of the public to fill in".

"Improvements would reduce the burden of bureaucracy on the citizen, and lead to greater administrative efficiency and savings for the taxpayer," he added.