The web now plays a key role in local government, with interactive council websites serving a huge variety of audiences, and they can help the authorities who run them to keep a vital finger on the pulse of the local communities they serve.

Good website governance can help ensure that services are properly managed and delivered; poor websites with errors, on the other hand, can lead to customer frustration and problems in getting council services. particularly for the most disadvantaged in the community.

Councils usually spend a great deal of money on website relaunches but if web governance is not part of the equation for the replacement, the end result all too often is a poorly-performing, inaccessible site. Sitemorse surveys websites in the public sector four times a year so has an objective view of how effective the web presences of the UK's local authorities really are, from the point of view of site users.

In fact, Web projects in local government would seem to us to be in need of significant funding increases to take into account the essential nature of their operation and key role in the way councils are transforming delivery of their services via online routes.

In our estimation, compared to the private sector business spend, councils may be underfunding their online operations ten-fold.

View all news articles