Europe’s new eGovernment scorecard is out and it comes loaded with some interesting titbits for British citizens.

Although 90 percent of individuals in the UK have access to broadband and use the Internet at least once a week, the country falls short in terms of online interaction with Web-based public services, according to figures published on Thursday by the European Commission’s national interoperability framework observatory.

At 37 percent, the portion of individuals using the Internet for obtaining information from government agencies in the UK is not much more than the European average of around 35 percent. And Brits using the Internet to download official forms dips one percent below the European average of 28 percent.

Estonia remains the poster child for eGovernment within the EU. It was marked 100/100 for electronic identification (eID), and the percentage of individuals using the Internet to interact with public authorities was also high at 81 percent. Elsewhere, three quarters of Dutch folk were found to interact with authorities online. Over in tiny Malta that figure climbed to 42 percent.

In the UK and Ireland, citizens purchased significantly more goods online than in other countries—Brits’ Web-based purchases rated 75 percent, versus around 40 percent for the EU average.

Unsurprisingly, 96 percent of enterprises in the UK have a broadband connection. In France that figure is 100 percent, yet the percentage of individuals using the Internet at least once a week in France is only 69 percent, and less than a quarter (22 percent) have purchased or ordered goods online in the last three months. Meanwhile, 44 percent of French citizens use the 'net to deal with public authorities.

Over in Germany, 84 percent of folk use the Internet at least once a week, and a relatively modest 53 percent use it for interacting with public authorities.

The trend across almost all countries in the 28-member-state bloc was for people to send forms to authorities using the Internet; less so for downloading those forms. Germany bucked that trend with 32 percent of citizens downloading forms, but only 17 percent of them using the Internet to submit forms.

The report also rated four specific performance indicators: User "centricity" (to what extent a service is provided online and how it is perceived); transparency of government processes and responsibilities; cross-border mobility for citizens using online services in another country; and so-called “key enablers.” These key enablers are the technological services available including eID, electronic documents (eDocuments), authentic sources, electronic safe (eSafe), and single sign-on (SSO).

Ratings were assigned after measuring response to simulated life-events—business start-up and early trading operations, losing and finding a job, studying, regular business operations, moving, owning and driving a car, and starting a small claims procedure.

The UK scored well on the user centricity: online availability, speed and ease of use and usability were all good. Its transparency rating was only middling, and the report rated the UK poorly for key enablers. By contrast, everything in Estonia was in the fair or good categories.