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In it's report, the Modernisation of the House of Commons Select Committee says: 'We are convinced of the need for a radical upgrading of the website at an early opportunity, which will require significant investment in systems and staff.'

The Committee's brief was to look at all aspects of the workings of the Houses of Parliament in order to make them more accessible and relevant to British citizens in the 21st Century. The Committee acknowledges that the website has come a long way in a few years with the 2002 redesign winning critical plaudits. In January the site received 2.5 million page requests from around 300,000 unique users.

The site offers some 9,000 pages on the Commons alone and a million pages worth of linked publications.

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On any site like that the search function is critical and the Committee admitted that they had been told that 'the search facility was not satisfactory and that information was not classified and grouped in a helpful way.' This is despite the fact that in the 2002 redesign some £30,000 was spent on upgrading the search.

A typical witness was a Professor Coleman. He told the Committee that the site was fine for regular users who knew what they were looking for but was not good for browsers who 'who cannot find what they might need but they do not even know is there'.

All well and good. However, the Committee realises that this will cost money and notes somewhat ruefully, 'the costs of such a significant enhancement would not be limited to software licences and technical integration. Even with the help of sophisticated content management and search tools, a user friendly, continuously updated on-line 'encyclopaedia' of parliamentary activity would require significant additional staff. The financial implications of this are for the Finance and Services Committee and the House of Commons Commission to consider.'

Finally, the Committee said that Parliament should make greater use of online consultations to gauge the views of the public, something that the UK has actually pioneered. The Committee is also proposing a weekly newsletter aimed at ordinary members of the public and informing them of the week's business.