What all council chief executives must ask about their website: new briefing from Socitm

There are three key questions that all council chief executives should be asking about their websites, says a new briefing from Socitm Insight: the cost of failed visits to the council website, the proportion of all enquiries now coming in via the website; and the top ten things people come to the council website to do.

In the briefing, written especially for local authority chief executives, Socitm argues that with the majority of council enquiries now coming in via the website (a fact it expects will come as a surprise to most council chief executives) understanding the performance of this key customer access channel has become a legitimate concern for council top teams.

What all council chief executives must ask about their website suggests that top managers in many councils still believe the website is a minority channel, and that most customers prefer to use the phone to contact them. This may well be what customers tell researchers they do, says the briefing, but based on data about actual visits to council websites, from individual councils, from Socitm sources, and from Socitm's partner, GovMetric - whose data shows that web to phone enquiries are in the proportion of 3:1, the reality is that customers actually prefer the web.

On average around 20% of these customer enquiries to council websites fail, and a further 20% partly fail. These will then reappear in councils' other, more expensive-to-service channels such as the phone or a personal visit. For a typical single-tier council, Socitm estimates that web failures may be generating as many as 650 extra enquiries a day, with the additional cost of web failures for all UK councils coming in at around £11m per month.

The majority of enquiries coming into council websites focus on a very small number of 'top tasks', says the briefing. Data that Socitm has compiled from tracking people's use of council websites shows these are centred around the areas of job vacancies, schools/youth, leisure facilities, libraries, rubbish and recycling, planning, housing, family history, council tax, events information, social care, parking, and adult/further education. However, traditional council website design has attempted to give equal weight to the hundreds of different council services, an approach, says the brefing, that is deeply flawed. Councils should now be switching to approaches that are focussed on what most users want to do - these will be far more efficient and will lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Drawing on data from Better connected 2010, the latest report on Socitm's annual survey of all councils websites, and from its Website take-up service, which collects customer survey data from more than a quarter of all council websites, the briefing goes on to ask, and answer a series of seven more questions to make up its top ten questions chief executive should ask.

The other questions covered in the briefing are:

• How satisfied are visitors to the website?
• How 'useful and usable' is the website?
• What percentage of your local population uses your website each month?
• How easily can people use your website from their mobile phones?
• Are people who phone the council out of hours directed to the website?
• Can disabled people use your website easily?
• Is your website working with social media to broaden communications with the local community?

What all council chief executives must ask about their website is a 4pp briefing with an 8pp appendix that is available free of charge for download from the Socitm website for Socitm Insight subscribers and their employees. A printed version of the 4pp briefing is being mailed to all local authority chief executives.

Press copies of the 4pp briefing can be obtained by emailing martin.greenwood@socitm.net

Further information

Vicky Sargent, Socitm Press Office
Tel: 07726 601 139  email: vicky.sargent@socitm.net

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