News release: “Capgemini released the 8th Benchmark Measurement of European eGovernment services. This Benchmark, prepared since 2001 for the European Commission’s (EC) Directorate General for Information Society and Media on the progress of eGovernment across the EU overall, shows Europe’s steady progress in terms of online availability – the EU27+ measure has risen to 71 percent in 2009, up from 59 percent in the last 2007 Benchmark. In addition, sophistication of services has also increased to 83 percent from 76 percent in 2007. The Benchmark, which covers more than 14,000 Government websites of 31 European countries, shows the leading six nations in terms of full online availability are: Austria, Malta, Portugal, the UK, Sweden and Slovenia. However, despite continued improvement in the availability and sophistication of eGovernment services, the report illustrates a significant gap between the availability and take-up of services, particularly for citizen services.”