I came from an IT / Sever / Networking background before I ditched the stress for web development, VPN is a familiar tool.
Perhaps I am becoming cynical but I think software these days tries to be a bit too smart for its own good, making it cost more, take longer to develop and is less usable.
As for the online GAR. It could easily be made available in the regions happy to accept it via email. I'd like to expand into other Counties and would probably have tried to do so if I ever flew out from anywhere other than Dorset. I'd even put it on a non-branded website if other Counties came on board. The key is to find a champion in each County to take the time to negotiate with the local authorities.
The negotiation part sounds a tough one but the reality is most agencies already accept GARs via email, usually leaving just the one agency to be convinced. We did this in Dorset by replicating the content of the official form visually but in particular ensuring the wording was exact, that made them happy.
Selling points to the agencies were - no more failed faxes, faxes sent to the wrong number, unreadable print outs, unreadable hand writing and missing information (due to the *required fields on the form).
The one we use for Dorset is clear evidence the concept and functionality are sound.
All I need to know the relevant email addresses and the County - job done (in a matter of days).
3 issues came up. First was the initial shock at the local office who (almost predictably) were not expecting it because they were not told about it. You can't control this but worth mentioning it when speaking to agency contacts. The other was to give the agencies a way to update their GAR email address, which was easy to fix. Finally commitment to feedback 1 - to ensure problems are resolved should they happen 2 - if the GAR form is updated.
That's it really, happy to answer any other questions.