New ranking system and updated assessment criteria announced for Better connected, Socitm Insight’s annual survey of the quality of council websites

Council webmasters and web managers are being invited to comment on the proposals by 25 September. Changes agreed will become effective for the 2010 survey carried out in November and December 2009, results of which will be published, as usual, on 1 March.

The proposed new system will replace the existing three ranks of 'excellent', 'transactional' and 'standard' with a four star rating, four stars equating to the current rank of 'excellent' and one star denoting a 'poor' site.

The changes are being made because of confusion about the descriptive terms used for the current ranks. The term 'transactional' has been in use for 11 years, and in the early years it served to encourage councils to focus on self-service. Nowadays it is sometimes interpreted to mean that, if a website offers transactions it is 'transactional', whereas the Better connected definition of the term has always meant much more.

In addition, Better connected reviewers have found it increasingly difficult to separate borderline 'transactional' sites from the better 'standard sites'. Also, the range of standard sites has now very wide, including those that are good with some limitations to those that are, frankly, poor. The additional rank being introduced will separate these sites from each other.

Overall, the impact of the new ranking system will be to make it more difficult to achieve the the second rank, and there will be fewer sites falling into the bottom rank. Modelling the new system on the Better connected 2009 results as far possible, the 2009 results would be:

• Nine four star sites (compared with nine excellent sites)
• 88 three star sites (compared with 160 transactional sites)
• 223 two star sites (compared with 255 standard sites)
• 104 one star sites (compared with 225 standard sites)        

Commenting on the changes, Martin Greenwood, Programme Director for Socitm Insight says:

We have signalled very strongly in Better connected 2009  the need for all council websites to raise their game in view of the critical importance now of self-service, and the equally critical importance of getting self-service right first time, every time. It is, therefore, right for us to be more thorough and demanding in the assessment carried out in Better connected.

Alongside the ranking review, Socitm Insight is updating the criteria for 'useful' and 'usable' websites that are reported on in Better connected and used to assess and rank websites. These proposals are now out for review, with comments also required by September 25.

Better connected assesses websites systematically using 16 criteria: information; currency, links elsewhere; news value; transactions; e-mail; participation; ease of finding; use of a to z; use of search; use of location; navigation; design of transactions; accessibility; readability;  and resilience. Each of these criteria is defined in detail by Socitm Insight, and the document published now, when finalised, updates Version 1 of the criteria, first published in Better connected: aiming high (January 2005).

The updating of the criteria reflects the need to keep the Better connected assessment relevant against the rapidly changing world of the web. In particular:

• the rapid growth the 'mobile web' makes it essential that websites be designed to be used by all such devices, This has a major impact on the way in which the Better connected criteria should be followed.
• To realise significant potential efficiency gains, web transactions should be fully integrated into the back office and not involve the information becoming an e-mail, or even worse a piece of paper that has to be processed in the traditional way.
• the use of social media and other Web 2.0 facilities is changing rapidly the way in which websites are being used. They have the potential for much greater citizen engagement, and could lead to a new generation of websites

The most noticeable (if not the most significant) change to the criteria is the dropping altogether of the one around ease of finding the website.  Essentially this is no longer the issue it was ten, or even five, years ago. Use of Google and other search engines and widespread understanding of how to make sites 'findable' by search, has made this redundant.

Documents containing the new proposals on Better connected ranking and criteria will be sent to Socitm Insight subscribers and will be available to download from the Socitm website (www.socitm.gov.uk) and the Socitm Insight Web Improvement and Usage community (http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk).

Further information

Copies of the papers containing proposals about are available on request.

Vicky Sargent Socitm Press Office
Tel: 07726 601139  email: vicky.sargent@socitm.gov.uk                 

Martin Greenwood, Programme Manager, Socitm Insight
Tel: 01926 498703 or 07967 383755  e-mail: martin.greenwood@socitm.gov.uk