"trendily-designed webpages bereft of useful information"
"The disclosures paint a picture that contradicts the public image of supremely confident digital gurus modernising the British government's many websites, and making them more efficient."
Indeed, "modernising," "websites" and "efficient" are three concepts that don't fit together in the same sentence. Across the internet, the average web page with a few kilobytes of useful information is now said to be over a megabyte.
Occasionally I'll stumble across an ancient web site (usually someone's personal site) that is not 99.8% crap and that actually follows recommendations for usability, portability and accessibility simply by keeping it simple. Most of these look like they were made by techies who simply wanted to exchange information.
I think much of the problem is that nowadays anyone with a word processor and a screen big enough to compose wall posters fancies themself a web designer.