When Matthew Taylor, the Prime Minister’s chief political adviser, addressed the Headstar conference on e-democracy in London earlier this month, he was talking about the potential for technology to address what he perceives as the central crisis of UK politics. But he could have been talking about the challenges of IT in business.

Taylor began on the positive note that expectations of the internet’s impact on grass-roots political involvement are proving justified. From Webcameron and interactive Prime Ministerial interviews, to e-petitions and online community groups, there are increasingly varied routes for direct engagement by, and between, citizens.

But Taylor has grave concerns about how far e-democracy will live up to its potential if it is part of the ailing relationship between the governors and the governed, rather than the cure.

The problems that threaten to undermine real progress are not about technology, but about culture.

Potentially, IT-enabled mobilisation of citizens and communities will help develop more engaged policy-making and breathe new life into an environment made barren by distrust.

The primary difficulty for governments is to navigate an acceptable course between citizens’ mutually exclusive demands – that the latest, expensive cancer drugs be available, free to all, without raising taxes or cutting spending, for example.

Informed and constructive debate needs an improved awareness among citizens of the compromises upon which all policy decisions hinge. But the biggest single contribution of IT to political debate so far is blogging. And because of the anti-establishment culture of what Taylor calls ‘net heads’, most blogs are not engaged in deliberative appraisal, but add to the corrosive atmosphere of oversimplification and ‘shrill outrage’.

‘The internet provides more interesting routes for citizens to mobilise and more ways to expose the limitations of politicians, but is technology yet providing sufficient opportunities for people to understand and engage in the real trade-offs we face as citizens and states?’ asks Taylor.

Computing has long championed IT’s place at the heart of the mainstream business agenda. E-democracy faces the same challenge: to move from the preserve of the specialist minority to a mature channel for the benefit of all.

As Taylor says: ‘The potential is huge, but technology is at its best when there is a real understanding of the fundamental problem, and that is not of a technical kind.’

The news that the British Medical Association (BMA) is urging doctors to discuss with their patients the electronic record at the core of the £6bn National Programme for NHS IT is a considerable step forward.

Relations between doctors' groups and Connecting for Health (CfH), which runs the National Programme, have been fractious since the start - clinicians claiming the programme is mis-designed because they were not sufficiently consulted, CfH hinting that the doctors are simply defending their status quo.

The BMA is recommending doctors educate themselves about  electronic records, in order to begin the process of educating patients. Such proposals, in advance of the major advertising campaign to be launched by CfH, suggests that calls for fundamental changes to the programme, from the BMA at least, may now be at an end.

The point where major stakeholder groups begin to accept a common route forward, and to work together in that regard, is a significant milestone in the monumental changes to be ushered in by the National Programme.

The first official report on successful government technology programmes was published today by the National Audit Office. It lists 24 examples of successful programmes - some big, some small, most from the public sector - and draws from them a series of recommendations of best practice.

An authoritative overview of both successful projects and the lessons learned is clearly a positive development. It seems slightly surprising that so many of the NAO's recommendations need to be made, though people often say that the best ideas are the ones that seem most obvious.

The  report is online here

Finally the eBorders shortlist goes down to two - the consortia led by BT and Raytheon. But no mention of why the month's delay... The rumour is that the Home Office realised it didn't have the budget and has spent the last few weeks alternately scrabbling around trying to afford it and negotiating with suppliers to drop the price.