A new website has been launched by government to help businesses identify their legal responsibilities and obligations.

Replacing the Business Link and Direct Gov websites, www.gov.uk comprehensively lists information from both websites, to make understanding government obligations ‘simpler, clearer [and] faster’. According to the Cabinet Office, running one site instead of two saves the taxpayer £70 million.

The business section of the website includes a ‘waste and environmental impact section’ that outlines a range of responsibilities and provides further information on topics including:

• Business waste duty of care
• Waste transfer notes
• Environmental licenses
• Compliance with environmental legislation
• Construction site waste management plans
• Hazardous waste disposal
• Registered waste carriers in England and Wales

Working in conjunction with the Environment Agency (EA), the website links back to the relevant EA and government pages, removing the need for users to find appropriate pages themselves.

Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, announced the launch of the new site yesterday (16 October), saying: “The release today of GOV.UK, the new home of government services and information, proves that we can deliver digital public services at a fraction of the price of previous government IT projects.

"GOV.UK will cost taxpayers up to £70 million less per year than the services it replaces, and substantial further savings will be achieved as more departments and agencies move on to the platform.

“Savings are important, of course, but what singles out GOV.UK as unique in government is the fact that it has been created putting its users’ needs at its heart, not the needs of government. It has been planned, written, organised and designed around what users need to get done, not around the ways government want them to do it.”

“Today marks the start of a new way of delivering public services digitally. GOV.UK is a platform for future digital innovation. In stark contrast to the way IT has been delivered in government in the past, GOV.UK can rapidly accommodate new standards for development and security, catering to emerging technologies and user requirements quickly and effectively. It has been built… by being agile, iterative and focused on users. GOV.UK has also been built using open source technology, which means we don’t have to pay expensive software licensing costs.

Maude went to reveal that the website came about as part of the Civil Service Reform Plan, published in June, which aims to make central government “smaller, faster, more unified, more accountable for delivery, more commercially capable and more digital”.

“The public wants services to be delivered better – and today we are responding with a digital platform that will make services quicker and easier to use, and produce efficiencies for government”, he added.

As well as providing businesses with details and links to their mandatory requirements, the website also outlines information on tax, renewing passports, car tax and birth, marriage and death certificates.

Visit www.gov.uk