The first version of the standard comprising simple Dublin Core elements was first published with the e-GMF. E-GMS was first published as a separate document by the
Office of the e-Envoy in April 2002 and contained twenty-one elements. Version 2 was released in December 2003 and added separate elements for Addressee, Aggregation, Digital Signature and Mandate. Version 2 also added further refinements and introduced the e-GMS Audience Encoding Scheme (e-GMSAES) and e-GMS Type Encoding Scheme (e-GMSTES). Version 3 was released in April 2004 and incorporated
PRONOM within the format and preservation elements. The most recent version, 3.1, was published in August 2006 by the
Cabinet Office e-Government Unit following the closure of the Office of the e-Envoy. It now forms part of the UK Government's
Information Principles, supporting the principle that "Information is standardised and linkable". Responsibility for maintenance and development of the standard has since moved from central to local government. ==Subject metadata and the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary (IPSV)==