Ministers have been urged to suspend their £5 billion e-government programme amid claims hundreds of official web sites are experiencing problems.

An independent survey of 20 flagship government web sites found three-quarters needed immediate attention, with the Prime Minister's own site one of the worst offenders.

The review, commissioned by the Interactive Bureau and carried out by Porter Research, warned the Government's target of fully online government by 2005 was "not realistically achievable" and urged ministers to halt the web programme while existing faults were rectified.

But John Harris, director of education services and former head of production at Brighton-based internet company Epic, called for a more balanced response to the problems of certain sites.

He said it would be "a real shame if every e-government site was tarred with the same brush".

Epic has won plaudits for its redesigned Houses of Parliament site and has worked on several other government-related sites.

The review said the 10 Downing Street site was "a mess - in need of a thorough overhaul from top to bottom".

If "Number 10" was typed into the Yahoo UK search engine, Tony Blair's site came out below 10 Rillington Place, home of the mass murderer John Christie.

The review awarded the site a score of 40.75 per cent, marginally higher than the the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Agency, which was rated the worst of all. The top-rated site was the Department for Education and Skills', which scored 78.5 per cent.

Interactive Bureau managing director Rodney Tyler said: "These are the 20 sites you would expect to be the standard bearers of usability and accessibility, good design and technical excellence."

Mr Harris described the Number 10 site as a classic example of one with no clear purpose.

He said: "When we designed the Parliament site, we made sure it was easy to get hold of the right information. A lot of people get hung up on branding but the key thing is making sure the content is up-to-date and what people look for."

Some government departments treated web sites like brochures and didn't move past this. But it was essential they were used to build a relationship between institutions and their audiences.

A number of sites were doing so and the Office of the e-Envoy was making good progress in guiding government departments'

online efforts.

www.iablondon.com
www.porterresearch.com
www.epic.co.uk
www.parliament.uk
www.e-envoy.gov.uk