Better connected 2012: a briefing for the top management team

Produced by: Socitm Insight

Type: Reports

With the world moving relentlessly towards digital delivery, the role and performance of the council website has become an issue for the top team.

Socitm Insight's Better connected 2012 shows the best council websites to be providing a full range of easy-to-use services where customers can find information and complete fully online tasks like 'Check council tax balance' or 'Object to a planning application'.

This degree of self-service is needed to support sustainable programmes of channel shift to the web, enabling significant savings to be made through reduction in the provision of face-to-face and phone services.

But relatively few local authorities have reached this point. Websites are improving, but not nearly fast enough. Most councils need to change radically the way that they govern and manage their web and digital activity, in order to achieve the scale of change that is needed.

Such change cannot be come from the web team alone: it needs to be driven by the top management team, as we explain in this 20pp briefing.

Contents

• This year's results
• Future of public services online
• Think customer
• Go mobile
• Commit to top tasks
• A new model for council websites
  • Website governance
  • Channel shift
  • Selecting top tasks
  • Size of websites
  • Web content
  • Improvement
• Use of social media

Better connected 2012: a briefing for the top management team is available now to Socitm Insight subscribers to download free of charge.

Printed copies are available from April 9, and can be ordered from using the Better connected 2012: briefing for top management teams order form.

Last modified: 23rd July 2012