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Gordon Brown has heaped praise on the winners of the e-Government National Awards, which were held earlier this month, organisers have revealed.

Mr Brown commented that "it's good to see technology providing real efficiency gains at the same time as increasing the effectiveness of services".

He said that it "is more important than ever" for the government to work effectively.

The prime minister noted that it was the largest amount of nominations for the event seen before, with organisations and individuals implementing new technologies taking part.

A total of 11 winners were awarded for their work and innovation in providing technology-driven and e-Government services.

Cabinet office minister for transformational government Tom Watson MP claimed that there is more that can be done in technology but the awards prove that much innovative work is being undertaken in the UK.

PublicTechnology.net, the London-based organisers, was established in 2003 and is the most-read public sector online information network in the UK.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.