Whitehall has given itself three years to make sure all transactional government services are 'digital by default.'

Making sure services can be accessed online has been a priority for the government for some time as it offers a way of saving money on delivering frontline services. Universal credit is set to be the first government service to be digital by default when it launches in 2013.

Now a number of significant services are expected to follow suit. In this year's budget, the government has set out a plan to make all transactional government services digital by default by 2015.

But with many users of such services not necessarily digitally-savvy, the budget has outlined a new standard of usability that services must adhere to in order to make sure some citizens won't be left behind.

"The government will transform the quality of digital public services by committing that from 2014 new online services will only go live if the responsible minister can demonstrate that they themselves can use the service successfully," the budget document says.

Elsewhere in the budget, the single Gov.uk domain got a vote of confidence, with a pledge that all government information will be published on the site by the end of 2012.