WRITTEN ON November 5th, 2005 BY Patrick Abrahams, The Local Channel AND STORED IN Transformational Government
In the latest strategy for Transformational Government Enabled by Technology – there is a section on the number of .gov.uk websites. It says:
There are currently over 2500 government websites. To ensure that overall the government uses the web most effectively to support its service delivery and communications strategies, the web presence of government will be rationalised. For each government organisation the number of different web sites it uses will be reduced and consistency introduced in line with its overall communications strategy. For customer information, self-service transactions and campaign support, services will converge on Directgov and Business Link as the primary on-line entry points; service-specific or stand-alone solutions will be phased out.
The interesting thing here is that this document almost completely refers to central government, whilst my analysis of the number of .gov.uk websites (Dating from January 2005) shows that
* Actually there are nearly 3500 .gov.uk websites
* 21% are for Central Government sites
* 22% are for central Government Agencies and directorates
* But, 57% are for regional sites
Where is the strategy for dealing with the regional .gov.uk website services?
Further detail and analysis on this is available from Patrick.abrahams[at]thelocalchannel.co.uk
2 Responses to “Just how many web sites are we dealing with?”
Of the 57% ‘regional’ .gov.uk websites, around 400 will be the transactional websites run by Local Authorities, successfully running online payments, bookings, applications for services, provision of information, consultation facilities, regulation, grants/benefits, revenue collection and onward links to alternative sources of help. Far from being profligate, these are already doing a fine job of serving the citizens and communities to which the authorities are politically accountable.
Let’s not let an ambition to tidy up online services and IT spend drive a horse and cart through local democratic accountability.
Also .police.uk .nhs.uk .mod.uk .ac.uk
We all like things to be tidy, but if there is something inherently wrong with a large number of websites, why are there no moves to consolidate several million “.co.uk” names?
The rationale for consolidating government sites is presumably (a) to reduce the costs associated with managing a fragmented web presence (b) to satisfy the demand from public and business for aggregated content, and (c) to offer additional features & benefits via a larger, and more sophisticated delivery unit.
It seems to me that there are greater potential savings to be found elsewhere, and that there are easier ways to drive more sophisticated features across government web sites. So the demand for more aggregated content must be the important driver.
My questions are:
a) Is there any evidence that this demand exists?
b) If so, is consolidation the best way to achieve it?