One of the web's better kept secrets is the amount of government business you can do online. According to the e-envoy, we're already two-thirds of the way towards the target of all possible government services being available electronically by December 31 2005.

When it comes to promoting individual online services, however, government bodies are a little bashful. Most local councils, for example, hardly promote their web activities. That's partly because most online services qualify for the 2005 target whether anyone uses them or not. But some officials are nervous about encouraging take up. Following crashes at the Environment Agency's flood warning service and the 1901 census site, many services have been given "soft launches" with no publicity.

Hence, perhaps, the British public's apparent apathy about e-government. Certainly, something needs explaining: in November, Tony Blair admitted that fewer than 10% of us had contacted the government online in the past year.

When it comes to local government, responsible for most public services, that figure drops to 7%, according to research published this week by Portfolio, a communications firm.

Its ICM survey found that only a minority consider looking for local government on the web, and that proportion drops off rapidly with age. Luckily, it's getting easier to find both local and central government on the web. There are two places to start. UK Online, a portal site run by the Office of the e-Envoy is a blazingly fast search engine that cuts the confusion around organisational names.

Even better, it attempts to organise public services around people's lives. Pick from eight tweely named life stages ranging from "babies" through "world of work" to "terminal illness and death".

Or, for local services such as education, refuse disposal and the hundred-odd other duties of councils, go to your local authority website. Find the URL from UK Online or try the name of your borough, district or county plus .gov.uk. Every one of the UK's 486 local authorities has a website (the last, Bridgnorth in Shropshire, will be officially launched this month).

Offerings vary wildly: generally, councils are better at collecting money, such as council tax and parking fines, than responding to requests. Some services, such as the Royal Borough of Kingston's Isis property information service are outstanding. Anomalies, however, abound.

The emphasis on online tax payments is questionable: according to the office of the deputy prime minister, 90% of council tax is collected by direct debit so there's little point in doing it online. On the other hand, attempts to set up a useful service - a one-stop notification of change of address - are on hold because it's illegal for a council to share such information between departments.

The Lord Chancellor's department is working on legislation to end that absurdity, but it will face scrutiny. A generic problem with online government is that a vast majority of services offer information rather than transactions. Such information is not necessarily trivial: NHS waiting lists is a remarkable example of a service that would not be possible without the web.

Another site that should be generating traffic is the official database of residential property prices in the latest quarter at regional, local authority or postcode levels. Keep up with government spin as it emerges from press offices on www.nds.coi.gov.uk. And Parliament's comprehensive site is a must.

Conducting a two-way transaction is more tricky. Straightforward e-commerce applications are easy enough: buy an angling licence from the Environment Agency or a television licence.

For anything more sensitive, you'll need to register either at the government gateway or at sites such as the Inland Revenue. Because many processes involve sending documents, such as applying for child benefit or a passport, most of the "transactions" available on the web allow you only to download a form, which must be posted or taken to an office.

Likewise, it's not possible to renew car tax online. The e-envoy's solution to the authentication problem is the government gateway, which allows users to register to either receive a PIN by post or, if you have one, a digital signature. The gateway is designed to be the hub for all secure transactions, but until the government finds a secure and cheap way for citizens to prove who they are electronically, it won't be much use.