Extensive efforts are being made to ensure there is no repeat of security lapses on the Inland Revenue's online filing system, the government's e-envoy has promised.

Andrew Pinder said the issue was being taken extremely seriously after the online self-assessment service for taxpayers had to be suspended when users reported seeing snippets of other people's information.

It was clearly regrettable and clear wrong and that stuff shouldn't happen

Andrew Pinder E-envoy

His comments came as MPs suggested that hundreds of millions of pounds had been spent on websites when the government had no idea of whether it was getting value for money.

Officials told the Commons Public Accounts Select Committee that efforts to get information on developing "government on the web" were now getting better.

The problems on the Inland Revenue's websites happened at the end of last month and the Self-Assessment Online site remains closed down.

Security being checked

Mr Pinder said the Inland Revenue were clearly very concerned about the problems and was working hard to make sure they could not reoccur before the site went live again.

Eight or nine taxpayers could see brief details of one other person's details because of the way one specific internet provider interacted with the website, said Mr Pinder.

It was important to keep what had happened in perspective, said Mr Pinder, adding: "It was clearly regrettable and clearly wrong and that stuff shouldn't happen."

Self Assessment Online was used by about 75,000 people to file their tax returns last year.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh pointed to criticisms of efforts to develop online government services made in a recent report by the controller and auditor general.

'Limited progress'

It suggested there was not enough information on the development of government on the web, he said.

And there had been limited progress in implementing the MPs' own recommendations on getting information about traffic to the websites.

Mavis McDonald, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, said things had got better since that report.

There was now a much wider spread of government websites, she said, and more interlinking of them through the main UK Online site.

But Conservative MP George Osborne said the auditor general's report showed the Cabinet Office had "somewhat out-of-date" information about the take-up of electronic services.

Value for money?

"Here are hundreds of millions of hundreds of pounds being spent and actually central government has no idea whether that money is being well spent or not," said Mr Osborne.

Mr Pinder countered that the Treasury and other departments did ensure there was value for money.

But it was difficult to separate out the costs for websites alone and those assessments were often done on a project by project basis when online work was only part of the whole scheme.

Individual departments also monitored their own traffic for their websites, he said.

Mr Pinder said that some of the benefits envisaged for online work would only be seen in the long-term, especially as websites like UK Online became better known.