Francis Maude, minister for the cabinet office, has backed a report recommending digitalisation of government to save wasting money on print-based document – a view seemingly at odds with the opinion of cabinet colleague Lord Green, minister for trade and investment, expressed recently in Digital Printer’s Best of British supplement.

Mr Maude supports the report, ‘Smarter, Better, Faster, Stronger’, by think tank Policy Exchange, which claims that the government ‘is wasting billions of pounds by relying on paper based public services’. It asserts that government could save as much as ‘£70 billion by 2020 if it adopts plans to eliminate paper and digitalise its activities’.

Mr Maude, said, ‘We estimate shifting government transactions to digital channels can save £1.2billion by 2015….This will deliver better value for hardworking families and better public services designed around users’ needs. In future, all Government services will be fast, convenient, agile and digital by default.’

However, when writing in theBest of Britishsupplement, published in July 2013, Lord Green described the print industry as ‘a vital economic contributor and employer in all UK regions.’

When asked byDigital Printer,if any thoughts had been made about how it would affect the print industry, a vital economic contributor, a spokesman for the Cabinet Office responded, ‘I am not aware that any considerations were given to how this could affect that [the print industry], we focus on how to save government departments money. 

The think tank was set up to develop and promote new policy ideas which deliver better public services, a stronger society and a more dynamic economy, and its latest report states, ‘Government should eliminate paper for interactions within and between departments, and switch exclusively to digital channels for public services that do not need a face-to-face interaction with the public’.

Two Sides, a non-profit organisation whose goal is to promote the responsible production and use of print and paper, and to dispel common environmental misconceptions surrounding it, responded, ‘This initiative appears to have a one-sided view which fails to take into account of the full impact that its implementation will have on UK citizens and the significant economic effect that digitisation is having on the print and paper related industries.’