Gordon Brown has set out plans to ensure super-fast broadband for every home, in a move he claimed could slash billions from public service costs and create more than 250,000 jobs. The Prime Minister pledged a "radical" package of internet-led measures - coupled with funding to be announced in Wednesday's Budget - to transform the UK by 2020. Some £30 million will be allocated to create an Institute of Web Science, headed by internet inventor Sir Tim Berners Lee and leading scientist Professor Nigel Shadbolt. And he warned that Tory proposals risked creating a "digital divide", with large parts of the country missing out on the advantages of an advance as significant as the arrival of electricity. Mr Brown plans to give everyone in the country a personalised webpage for accessing services within four years in a bid to reduce the cost of face-to-face contacts with officials. Job centres and physical offices dealing with tax, vehicle licensing, passports and housing benefit could be closed within 10 years. Unions have complained that thousands of public sector workers would be made jobless and personal data put at risk given the State's poor security record in recent years. But Mr Brown said it was vital that the UK was at the forefront of new technology. "I want Britain to be the world leader in the digital economy which will create over a quarter of a million skilled jobs by 2020, the world leader in public service delivery where we can give voice and choice to citizens, parents, patients and consumers, and the world leader in the new politics where that voice for feedback and deliberative decisions can transform the way we make local and national decisions," he will say in a speech. "I want to make a radical set of proposals which include transfers and shifts in existing spending, including being prepared to cancel current projects, and which - together with more detailed plans set out by the Chancellor in the Budget on Wednesday - will help us to save billions of pounds a year in public sector costs in the next few years." The Tories have promised to provide universal access to super-fast broadband - using digital switchover cash from the BBC licence fee to make up any shortfalls in market-led provision. But Labour insists state help will be needed upfront to ensure rural areas do not lose out and has introduced a 50p tax on existing landlines to pay for it. | 
