The government’s online services minister has spoken of his “frustration” with the constraints on civil servants’ web access.

Work and pensions minister Jim Knight, who has recently been appointed the government’s lead on moving public services online, said he had an “ongoing struggle” with officials about web access and called for government to tackle the problem “head on”.

Knight was speaking at a the recent Dotgov Live conference on online public services, which was organised by the government’s three biggest websites: Directgov, Businesslink and NHS Choices.

Speakers, including Knight, told the audience that the move of more and more public services online could open up a dialogue between citizens and the public sector about how those services should work.

During a question and answer session, Civil Service World asked Knight how civil servants could be expected to engage with the public when they are banned from using many of the social media sites – such as Youtube or Facebook – where members of the public voice opinions.

Knight admitted that it is “a frustration to me that so much is locked out because of our very low appetite for risk in this area”.

The fear is, he explained, that civil servants accessing such sites from government computers would put the entire system at risk from hacking.

While that is understandable, he said, it is “an ongoing struggle that I have with government IT, because there are times that I want to use government IT and not just my iPhone,” he said.

“I can’t catch up on what was on the Today programme that morning or go on Youtube using government IT,” he pointed out. “There is so much that I can’t do.”

Knight said he had already had meetings with communications firm Blackberry to discuss how the phones they provide to government officials and ministers are set up. “I know there are different ways that you can set it up to manage risk,” he said.

“Ultimately, we have got to address this issue head on in government,” he said.

Knight told the conference that many public services would only be accessible online in the future, but he warned that this would require an acceleration of the digital inclusion programme some groups aren’t to be disadvantaged.

About a third of UK households still don’t have access to the internet, and Knight said he was expecting an acceleration plan to be published next month by the digital inclusion team.

In the meantime, he said, the public sector must start preparing to interact with citizens online, even if it isn’t possible quite yet.

“The important thing is that we change our mindset to be agile enough to try and keep up with development, and most important have a culture shift that welcomes a very active, real-time engagement with the public,” he said.

Other speakers at the conference included Directgov chief Jane Nickalls, and Businesslink head David Dinsdale.