1. Introduction

In a paper to the DC-2001 Dublin Core conference [ John Roberts, Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Dealing With NZGLS Development Issues, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications 2001, (2001) http://www.nii.ac.jp/dc2001/proceedings/product/paper-42.pdf], the treatment of services was identified as a critical area for the use of discovery metadata by the New Zealand E-government programme. Discussions in the DC-Government Working Group confirmed that E-government programmes worldwide are seeking to take a service-centric approach to representing government to the public. This paper explores the importance of service description for e-government, and a range of issues in applying Dublin Core-based metadata in this way. It draws on experiences of the New Zealand E-government programme in using the Dublin Core-based New Zealand Government Locator Service (NZGLS) schema in the development of a new whole-of-government portal which is both service-focused, and metadata-driven.