The dilemmas of local council websites

With the internet and social media platforms proving more popular than ever, now is the time for local councils to get digital, argues Nigel Hillier of Vision ICT.

We know that local councils are at the very heart of their communities; giving neighbourhoods a voice and making people more involved in the decisions that affect them. There are over 9,000 local councils in England, meaning that over 16 million people live in communities served by local councils – around 25 per cent of the population. There are 80,000 councillors who serve these councils, making a difference in their communities (NALC).

These councils form the most local level of government and cover many rural and urban areas. The latter includes many of our larger cities but the vast majority are very small with low precepts and very low staffing levels. They are still being created today; the latest development is the first formation of Parish Councils in London since the 1960s. They carry out work representing their local communities to other tiers of government and deliver services to meet local needs and improve the quality of life within their parish.

In order to carry out this work they have a vital role in communicating and interacting with their communities. As we all acknowledge, the internet in today’s society is accepted as the most effective way of achieving this. To encourage councils in this direction, the move for public services to be delivered online or by other digital means, and in response to a report published by Martha Lane Fox back in 2010 entitled ‘Directgov 2010 and beyond: revolution not evolution’, the government argued for a channel shift that would increasingly see public services provided digitally ‘by default’.

Effective websites
The most recent move to ensure councils provide information digitally has come through the introduction of the Transparency Code (April 2015) which calls for councils with less than £25,000 precept to now put a range of financial and other information on-line through a website. This has driven thousands of small councils to develop a site for the first time. The good news for these small councils is that the government is making grants available to support them in achieving this. Larger councils with a precept of over £200,000 also have to map their assets and publish these on a website.

The requirements to have a website are now clear and so what should councils be looking for when developing an effective website? There are three key principals. Firstly, the website should have a quick and easy to use content management system (CMS) to make updating the website quick and easy. Additionally, the website should be fully responsive making it easy to be viewed on mobile devices. And thirdly, the website should have clear navigation to make finding information straight forward.

Any website is only as good as the content and the information it offers its visitors and this has to be kept up to date. The days where you continue to pay the web developer to make changes to your site have long gone, or should have. There are a wide variety of CMS systems available these days from open source technologies to the individual web design companies’ hand built systems.

Low cost open source software, such as Wordpress and Joomla, are content management systems based on PHP and MySQL and feature plugin architecture and template design systems to choose from. A variety of thoughts are expressed from clerks about how easy these systems are to use and this will depend on their starting knowledge base of IT. There are an increasing number of website companies, both national and local, who will offer the free open source website approach for a professional fee.

For many years some county and district councils have been offering a free service to their local councils, providing a template website with shared local information. Where this is on offer, there is a very high take up and it can work well. However, as local government cuts continue to drive on, the support put into these free systems, or indeed the provision of these services at all, is decreasing. This is a very critical period for councils and websites, especially as there is now a legal obligation for small councils to have a site, and a high number currently using the free ones through the district or county. If they are removed, these small councils will need to ensure that they know early enough to apply for the government grant. This will need to be watched very closely.

Working on a budget
There are a number of good professional website companies that are specialists in working with local councils and offer a personal, supportive and on-going service which provides the support and comfort that many council clerks appreciate. The world of websites and IT is still a new field in which they are having to develop their confidence and it is very re-assuring knowing you can count on quality and expert help through a professional company whenever needed.

Other choices include, as always free websites, and these can vary considerably but one always has to ask is there ever such a thing as a free meal, how long will it last and is there the help and support you may need. Along with this there is also the councillor or a friend of a councillor who someone knows that offers a free or very cheap site, or become part of the local community website. Again there are examples where this has worked very well but the key questions are: how long will the service remain free, what happens when the friend moves away, or the councillor loses their seat on the council?

There are now legal obligations for areas of content to be added and so the key question is: can you rely on other people to do this and there is the need for the clerk/responsible finance officer to ensure the website content is published within the regulation time frames?

Responsive websites web design isn’t a trend any more, it’s a must. 55 per cent of websites are now viewed on a mobile device and so if your website is not responsive then an increasingly high level of visitors will not be able have a good optimised experience. The better the experiences of visitors to the website, the better the reach of your council services and the chances you have of engaging with your communities.

Responsive web design is a technique that allows a website to react to the screen size of the device it’s being viewed on. It’s an approach to web design aimed at creating websites that offer an optimal viewing experience across multiple devices, including mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers.

Councils and social media
There is no question that social media is a powerful tool. However, wherever there is power, there is also danger. As much as social media platforms can be used for good, they can instantly turn bad as well, which is why councils tend to be more hesitant towards embracing them.

The trouble is, there is no right or wrong decision, and there is no right or wrong way to use social media. The underlining rule is that there must be the resource behind it, if you choose to use it. If you decide to embrace social media, whether you are a council or the clerk, there is no point having it if you don’t respond and interact with it.

If councils do decide to use social media it is important to ensure there is time built in to go behind it to keep it ‘active’, then there are a few things they need to look out for. Many councils are worried about losing levels of integrity and authority by joining platforms such as Twitter and Facebook due to the fun loving and joking nature behind them. However you could spin this problem on it’s head and show more integrity by showing support of the younger generations and promoting it as a platform that they can come to and communicate their thoughts and ideas. It is also important to note that social media is no longer just a medium for the young and embraces all age bands.

As beneficial as engaging with a wider audience can be, this is also where councils need to be most on the ball. With engagement and interaction, there is bound to be hostility, you must be prepared to accept the good with the bad. If you ignore the bad and only communicate with the good, the bad will only get worse, and this goes back to my first point about having the resource to manage the platforms. As already stated in this article many councils are very small with limited staff hours and this is the real crux of the problem.

Social media can be used to ask questions and gauge opinion. Surveys and questionnaires are quickly and easily filled out online, and advertising them via social media could help increase levels of completion and therefore improve the validity of any studies that are conducted. Council team meetings can also be filmed and uploaded to these platforms to help generate a true sense of transparency and help their local residents feel more involved with the decisions the council is making.

Overall, social media can be an effective tool for local councils, but they must be prepared for the good, the bad and the ugly. People are more confident to share controversial opinions and ideas behind a computer screen than they are face to face, however if you actively show an interest in such opinions and try and respond to these people, they may in the long term, develop a greater sense of respect and understanding from their local residents. This is not a textbook matter; sometimes you need to go with your instinct when it comes to what you share, but whatever your instinct is, you must believe in it, as you can’t go back on yourself once it’s been shared with the world wide web.

Vision ICT Ltd is a specialist website design company working with over 400 local councils.

Further Information
www.visionict.com