Posts by r3dg3cko

Brits trapped in confusing council website labyrinths - survey

Re: Councils should not have websites

Good points. The article is referring to a very small aspect of what SOCITM review however and this is something they've only started recommending this year, which is why the figures are so low, structural change to council websites is always going to take time due to all the hoops and constant justification.

From a commercial point of view it's always going to be easier for private companies to quickly produce a properly implemented website as the bulk of what they do is usually more focused than the broad spectrum of legislation and council services that your local council has to provide. Add that to the ever increasing challenge of working with councilor's and council officers who have traditional government working methods ingrained in their job rolls and it can be a real up hill struggle.

It's also worth remembering that most of the time the council's web team are going to be far more frustrated with their site's shortfalls than the customer. In a lot of cases their the only ones driving online take-up, and sometimes the only people listening to what the customer has to say.

May be hard to believe but in some cases we're still having to convince people that the internet is actually a customer channel and that it's here to stay. Half the battle is convincing the right people that we're not keeping up with customer expectation.

Re: Why?

as above, it's not like it hasn't been tried - just seems like it's far too complicated to realise. regional and local expectations just create too varied of a service, alternatively central government dictates what services and structures should be but then you just end up back at the LGNL.

Re: Councils should not have websites

and how would people access the services they currently use Online? In person or on the phone which would mean an immediate increase in staff and funding increasing council tax even further not reducing it.

Online transactions cost a fraction of face to face and telephone services, we're just lucky that Online take-up has increased alongside customer expectation.

Worth noting that many of the things local councils struggle with are supplied by third parties, there's not a huge demand for providing solutions to government as it's not a massive market and because the suppliers don't make a massive profit they have very little incentive to improve software or fix bugs.

Also worth noting that the LGNL was a "suggested" structure for all local authorities which they had to adhere to, it was designed with the customer in mind, all be it rather generically - top tasks are much more focussed locally but restructuring an entire authority site is a potential nightmare.

No excuses for empire building or historically departmentalised councils though, these should change and evolve fluidly but equally it's impossible to make everyone happy, especially with customers complaining that their local council's website is useless because they can't renew their car tax.