APPENDIX A
NORTH HERTFORDSHIRE DISTRICT COUNCIL
Overview and Scrutiny Committee Task and Finish Group Report
THE COUNCIL’S WEBSITE & CITRIX CONNECTION
11 December 2013 27 January 2014
Cllr Sal Jarvis (Chair) Cllr Jean Green Cllr David Leal-Bennett Cllr Mike Rice Cllr Deborah Segalini
CABINET (25.3.14) 1. BACKGROUND
1.1 This task and finish group sought to improve the usability, cost effectiveness and efficiency of the Council’s website; and to consider improvements to the Citrix connection for users. The scope of the review is attached at Annex 1.
1.2 The group considered the website and the Citrix connection on two separate evenings and its conclusions and recommendations are set out below.
2. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
2.1 The Council’s Website
2.1.1 In 2007, the Council took a significant step to improve its customer services by moving its web site from a hosted service to a new in-house managed solution and redesigning the site. This made the website more robust, easier to update and use and more accessible to the public.
2.1.2 Since then, customer expectations and technology have advanced and it is now time to redesign and replace the existing web site with a more up to date version with greater functionality, especially in its ability to promote self- help. The group was pleased to hear that the Council is preparing a major improvement to the website and has identified a number of areas which could be improved as part of the website replacement.
2.2 The Council’s Citrix Connection
2.2.1 Citrix is a proven, industry recognised system that meets the Council’s business requirements at a reasonable cost. The vast majority of officers use it without much difficulty. Changing it would be expensive, resource intensive and disruptive.
2.2.2 Difficulties with early versions of Citrix and other teething problems have put many members off using it altogether and left them reluctant to try to do so again. Some members have worked around this by, for example, arranging for emails to be forwarded automatically to their personal e mail accounts. However, auto forwarding e mails to private e mails address could put both the authority and/or members at risk of breaching the Data Protection Act where an e mail address is unsecure. The Cabinet Office and the Public Services Network (PSN) changes on how data should be handled and protected will pose a considerable threat to these arrangements and it is important that members understand the consequences of this.
2.2.3 There is another category of member who either cannot use Citrix because they are forbidden from running it on their work computer; or choose not to do so because of compatibility and synchronisation problems. For these members there is a product called Good Technology, which sits on Androids, iPhones or iPad devices. This application (app) will allow users to see their
CABINET (25.3.14) @north-herts.gov.uk e mails, calendar, tasks and contacts from within Outlook, within a secure environment. Members will be able to reply to e mails from this app and not have to auto forward e mails to unsecure e mail addresses which could, in some circumstances, breach data protection rules. The IT Service should assist all members individually to find out their personal preferences for either having the latest release of Citrix or having the Good Technology app. Either option will allow them the information and access they need.
CABINET (25.3.14) 2.3 Recommendations
Recommendation 1: The Council should aim for a simpler, more user- friendly website with clear, up to date messages on the home page.
Recommendation 2: The website’s vocabulary should be reviewed and if necessary reworded using language that visitors to the site can easily identify with.
Recommendation 3: The Council’s website should be easier to search so all the website’s content can be accessed by way of a single search; and the results sorted more effectively by relevance and date.
Recommendation 4: Navigation around the website needs to be easier and shorter with more use of drop down menus and key information available within no more than three clicks.
Recommendation 5: The website should have a postcode/address facility which would allow users to search for information and services available in their areas.
Recommendation 6: The existing web content should be reviewed; and the approval system for new material managed more closely to ensure pages contain concise, accurate, up to date information consistent with the Council’s corporate identity.
Recommendation 7: Any website development should be informed by a clear understanding of both users’ and the Council’s needs. The Council should in particular try to engage with and seek the views of harder to reach customers for example older people, younger people and the less literate.
Recommendation 8: Citrix works well for the majority of users, and the Council should continue to use it.
Recommendation 9: The Council should alert members to the impending changes in data protection protocols and their consequences.
Recommendation 10: The IT Service should proactively assist all members individually to find a personal solution – either Citrix or Good Technology – which will allow them to access the services and information they need.
CABINET (25.3.14) 3. THE COUNCIL’S WEBSITE: SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE
The Origins of NHDC’s Website
3.1 Howard Crompton, Head of Revenues, Benefits & IT explained the evolution of NHDC’ s website. In 2006, the software hosting and maintenance had been carried out by VLI Ltd. The website was of limited scope, and it was difficult to get new material onto the website, with additional costs incurred for any changes. The remote hosting costs were relatively low - £7,963 in 2005/06, and £2,904 in 2006/07 – which reflected the limited nature of the website and the limited service which underpinned it. Its main characteristics were: The Webmaster was the Communications Manager;
The numbers of authors and approvers of webpages was limited;
the web site used only very basic textual information;
There were no electronic forms;
There were extra costs for changes and uploading;
data became very much out of date;
The website had no meta data; and
The search facilities were poor.
3.2 This changed with the service@north-herts project which was designed to improve and streamline access to services, communications and service delivery for customers and partners. Some of the IT changes included the creation of an open IT architecture, the introduction of mobile working by the Council’s Revenues and Benefits Team, a Council-wide intranet, an updated and improved website and electronic payment facilities. This project saw the Council move to internal hosting of its website, and the Council negotiated a five year fixed price with Anite/Northgate starting in 2007/08 and costing £11,738 a year, with the option of additional years at the same costs which has been taken up by the Council.
3.3 The upgraded website caused an increase in staff costs as a hump of work was needed to capture and consolidate data, set up an intranet as well as develop the new website. Staff costs were £74,184 in 2007/08 when the Council employed a web manager and two web assistants - one for development and one for content. Staff costs fell in subsequent years to £50,479 in 2009/10 when the web developer’s fixed term contract ended; and to £30,247 in 2012/13 when the other web assistant post was made redundant in April 2013.
Table 1: Summary of Costs
CABINET (25.3.14) Software Costs (OpenText) Staff Costs* 2007/08 £11,738.00 £74,184.00 2008/09 £11,738.00 £74,925.00 2009/10 £11,738.00 £50,479.00 2010/11 £11,738.00 £50,479.00 2011/12 £11,738.00 £50,479.00 2012/13 £11,738.00 £30,247.00 *Figures shown for staff costs are for web development, web support and training. These figures do not include direct costs, authors, approvers, content
3.4 The website in its existing form is now due for renewal, and the Council is looking to replace it. There are a number of issues to be considered including the large number of authors and approvers of web content, which leads to inconsistency in the style of webpages; and the need for content to display better on mobile devices.
External Assessment of the Council’s Website
3.5 The Council participates in an annual survey of its website conducted by the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm). Socitm promotes the effective and efficient use of IT in local government and the wider public sector. The survey uses criteria such as the ease of users’ journeys, with the destinations changing each year. NHDC’s website performed well against those near neighbours who also participated in the survey. NHDC was unable to achieve the maximum 4 stars rating as users were unable to resize the website’s pages for their mobile phones and tablets due to the age of the technology.
Table 2: SOCITM Annual Better Connected Survey (Maximum Rating: 4 Stars)
2009* 2010 2011 2012 2013 North Herts S 2 Stars 2 Stars 3 Stars 3 Stars Uttleford S 2 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 3 Stars Central Beds n/a 1 Star 2 Stars 2 Stars 2 Stars Herts CC S 3 Stars 2 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars Luton T 2 Stars 2 Stars 2 Stars 2 Stars South Cambs S 2 Stars 2 Stars 2 Stars 2 Stars Welwyn T 2 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 2 Stars Hatfield Three Rivers S 2 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 1 Star Broxbourne n/a 2 Stars 2 Stars 2 Stars 2 Stars *2009 – S = Standard (equal to 2 stars); T = Transactional (equal to 3 stars)
CABINET (25.3.14) 3.6 The Council’s website must meet the minimum standard set by the UK Government - Level AA of the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. In order to help reach this standard, in 2009 the Council invited the Shaw Trust, a national charity that helps disabled people find work and achieve greater independence to conduct an External Accessibility Audit.
3.7 While the Shaw Trust found much of the site to be accessible, they found some areas for improvement such as navigation issues, removing html tables from being used for page layouts; introducing relative text sizing; improving the search facility layout; fixing online form titles; and creating headings for non-content pages (like the home page). Most of the faults identified lay in the basic technical structure of the site, and could be resolved by the Council’s IT department.
3.8 A few areas, like language (including the use of acronyms and abbreviations) and how links opened, were the responsibility of authors and approvers, and could be addressed through raising awareness during training sessions.
3.9 Following the resolution of these issues, the site was surveyed again and subsequently received Shaw Trust accreditation. Since then the site has maintained its Level AA accessibility rating.
Search Engines 3.10 The search engine used on the Council’s website prior to 2009 was dtSearch, which was expensive to run, difficult to maintain and was failing in its basic task of providing useful results for visitors. It was also prone to crashing, requiring the IT Helpdesk Team to re-start the service.
3.11 After investigating the other options available, the Council decided to replace it with a Google Mini. The Mini was cheaper to run, required very little effort to maintain and, coming from the global leader in internet search, offered a greatly enhanced customer experience. The results have been impressive. Today the search engine is used around 250 times a day, with no complaints logged in the last 3 years
Website Usage and Customer Satisfaction
3.12 Members heard that the top five service areas visited were council tax, planning, parking, leisure and recycling. Website usage varied according to the time of year, with surges of interest in children’s play schemes and other outdoor leisure activities during the summer for example.
Table 3: Top 10 Web Page Hits From 1 st April 13 – 1 st December 13
North Hertfordshire District Council (home page) 150,812 North Herts Leisure Centre 46,554 Waste and recycling 43,748 Hitchin Swimming Centre 41,782
CABINET (25.3.14) Search planning applications 40,819 Contact us 39,271 Pay for It 35,856 A-Z of Services 35,147 Planning 34,704 Council Tax 34,551
3.13 Forms usage also showed some variation. The main forms used in 2013 were the refuse calendar, parking appeals and the resident’s parking application permit.
3.14 Vic Godfrey, Information Communication Technology Manager at NHDC, said that the IT Team had been carrying out a survey of 20% of visitors to the website to gauge public opinion on key aspects of the website. The IT team had increased the sample to 100% to assist the work of the task and finish group.
3.15 Overall, Vic said that the public survey indicated that most people were satisfied while a small number were dissatisfied. Although the findings were interesting, the group thought that the small sample size meant that the data could not be relied on. They considered that people might be more likely to complete a survey if they were dissatisfied. It would also be important to know the age of the respondent since older people might be less inclined to complain via the website.
Current Web Developments
3.16 Howard said that a new Web Strategy was currently being drafted for the Council’s Senior Management Team (SMT) to review. The IT team had carried out four reviews/demonstrations of different suppliers to see what alternative providers are on the market and understand potential costs and benefits to the Council. NHDC planned to review customer interactions with the Council and produce an action plan for future channel migrations.
3.17 In order to develop its interactive E Forms, the IT team favoured conversion of the current EBase Forms to ASP.Net, which was in Microsoft standard language. Members queried whether it was wise to return to ASP.net as this would mean going from a simple system to a more complicated one.
Customer Contacts
3.18 Sarah Dobor, Communications Manager at NHDC said that evidence from the District Wide Survey found that the majority of customers still contacted the Council by telephone. The percentage of customers who normally obtain information about NHDC services from the website had increased from 16% to 56% since 2011, and it was estimated that some 88% of customers had access to the internet.
CABINET (25.3.14) 3.19 The web was rarely used for reporting 3Cs (Compliments, Comments and Complaints) with most people preferring to do so by e mail. E mail was a resource intensive form of communication for the Council, using similar amounts of staff time to telephone contacts.
3.20 Vic Godfrey said that customers often did not know how to access the Council’s forms from the website. He considered that the forms needed to be better categorised into themes, with drop down menus available within each category.
3.21 Sarah said service areas varied in how much material they posted on the website and how easy it was for the customer to find it. It would be useful if the website’s content was streamlined as it would be less cluttered and easier to navigate. The existing author and approver system was too decentralised and should be revisited. Some service areas also updated the website infrequently which led to out of date information and inconsistencies.
3.22 The look and feel of the website was important to the public. The aim should be a pleasant, simple customer experience. There was a case for re- drafting some of the headings and language used into plain English by talking about ‘bins’ and ‘council tax’ for example, so they made more sense to the public. It would be useful to have links on the homepage to the top searches such as bin collection schedules and planning. The Communications Team would also like to see a facility whereby residents could enter their postcode to bring up the services which were available to them such as when their bins are emptied and who their local councillor is.
3.23 There was work to do to enable the website’s content to be displayed more clearly on mobiles and tablets. The Council is aware of the importance of social media, was due to launch a corporate Facebook page and already made use of Twitter. Members agreed it was important to share the content of the Council’s website across social media platforms, particularly immediate news items. Sarah said the Communications Team were looking at this as a separate exercise, and were in the process of drafting an updated communications strategy which will include a social media strategy. There was a good case for giving social media a high profile: the Council had found Twitter to be a really useful way of reaching a new audience and engaging in a two-way conversation with residents at a low cost.
Task and Finish Group Website Surveys
3.24 Brendan Sullivan, Scrutiny Officer at North Herts District Council said that he had commissioned two surveys on the effectiveness of the Council’s website.
3.25 The parish and town councils’ survey rated the Council’s website as being reasonably good. The main issues which were highlighted were: slowness in downloading data which might be related to issues such as rural broadband provision;
CABINET (25.3.14) some dissatisfaction with planning applications both in finding information and tracking down applications, and the amount of information provided in planning applications; and a desire for parish councils to have better information about who to contact in the Council.
3.26 The councillors’ survey revealed some dissatisfaction with the Council’s website. Some councillors thought it could be difficult to navigate, especially for people who didn’t know what they were looking for. The titles were not intuitive and too many clicks were needed to reach the final destination.
3.27 There was also some dissatisfaction about the search function, such as the results not being prioritised in date order; and many irrelevant items being found.
3.28 Members said it was important to remember that the public and Councillors often went to the website to do different things and to find out different sorts of information. There was general agreement that the planning information needed to be better organised and more accessible. Sarah Dobor suggested that instead of people having to use lots of links, it might be better if they were able to search using a specific word which would take them to their desired place in the website. Gavin Midgley, Website Manager at NHDC, said that the website was made up of a number of different sub-sites. This meant, for example, that it was not possible to search the planning homepage from the North Herts website homepage.
Questions to Portfolio Holders
3.29 Members asked Cllr Terry Hone, Portfolio Holder for Finance and IT, whether NHDC’s financial position might constrain website development. Councillor Hone said that NHDC must be prepared to support the community to the best of the Council’s ability. An important part of that was having an effective and user-friendly website. The Council would be prepared to invest in website development using savings derived from channel switching.
3.30 Cllr Leal-Bennett said it should be possible for the Council to develop the website without a great deal of cost. The website’s back end – the software behind the public interface - was the biggest problem, as well as the issues with linkages. It would be useful to know how many hours of work would be needed to make the necessary changes. Cllr Hone said he would rely on the advice of officers about costs, and the administration would then be able to decide what money needed to be spent.
3.31 Members asked whether the Council intended to seek the views of users as part of any future website development. Cllr Levett, the Portfolio Holder for Policy who had responsibility for communications in NHDC, said the Council would be trying to do so through the communications strategy, including user testing. Although the strategy was not very advanced at this stage, the
CABINET (25.3.14) portfolio holders were content for the draft strategy to be circulated to the task and finish group. However the concept was clear: future content must be ready for android and i-phones.
CABINET (25.3.14) Discussion
3.32 Members identified a number of themes from the evidence they have heard. These were: looking forwards in terms of what changes were desirable rather than looking backwards at any shortcomings; getting the fundamentals right in terms of quality and applications; ease of use, with nothing more than three clicks away, and one search engine covering the whole web content; connecting with hard to reach groups including younger people especially through social media; a review of authorship and ownership.
3.33 In terms of ease of use, it was necessary to know what the public wanted from the website, so the Council could design it on the simplest basis. It could then include more complex material at a later date. Vic Godfrey said the Council would look at the number of hits on the website. These varied according to the time of year. Between December and February most of the hits were concerned with waste, whereas in the summer there were a lot more hits on page is concerned with play schemes. Sarah Dobor said that the Council had a lot of user data from customer service contacts which it could use to identify what people needed.
3.34 Members considered that headings should be simpler, for example, Council and Democracy was not a good way of directing people to their local councillor. The website should work seamlessly for the user: if the journey became long and complicated, people would wander off or give up.
3.35 In terms of ownership, each department had responsibility for its own section or pages of the website, and different departments approach the website in different ways. One person or department needed to have overall ownership of the website, otherwise there could be inconsistencies both in the tone and message given out by different departments. The website was the face of the Council, there needed to be some consistency of standards and approach. Pages needed to be updated regularly, and the Communications Team were in favour of greater editorial control, even though this had resource implications.
3.36 That said, it was clear that individual service areas as technical specialists needed to retain control over the content of webpages, although the communications team should be free to edit pages to ensure consistency and ease of reading without losing the technical detail provided by the service. To assist services there should be a standardised format / content management template and clear guidance on the type of content services should be providing, putting the needs of the customer first. At the moment, there was too much material and there needed to be a much better balance between providing too much and too little information.
CABINET (25.3.14) 4. CITRIX: SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE
Choosing Citrix
4.1 Howard Crompton, Head of Revenues, Benefits & IT explained that the current IT Service originated from a fundamental service review (FSR). The FSR report was considered by the Performance and Review Committee in February 2003 and by Cabinet in February 2004. This work led to the Strategic Support Service Contract and the Council’s work with Anite and was a key part of the service@northherts programme. The reports key recommendations were for the Council to: produce an IT Strategy which would provide the main point of focus for the IT Service and educate the Council with regard to standards, priorities and procedures; rationalise the number of IT Suppliers and establish preferred supplier status; consolidate maintenance contracts to improve Council’s negotiating powers – allowing the Council to negotiate more effective support contracts and where possible, preferential rates; and improve the IT Helpdesk – and introduce an online version to enable staff to log their own service requests, and monitor and track their progress.
4.2 The change was intended to address a number of IT issues which existed at the time. First was the need to rationalise and replace the large number of costly, unreliable and aging servers. These caused repeated IT failures, were hard to repair as parts were hard to get hold of and were supported by costly support maintenance contracts. At the time, NHDC had 79 Windows servers supporting the authority’s core business solutions and which were running over 300 different applications; 6 Sun Solaris servers running Unix; and multiple licences of ArcServe Back-Up software to secure both Microsoft and Sun Solaris Servers.
4.3 The Council’s use of desktop technology also needed addressing. All the PCs, monitors and printers were on a 3 or 4 year operational lease and costing the authority a considerable amount of money to replace on annual programmes. The desktop computers all ran FAT Client software which meant that all the application software had to be loaded locally on each and every device. This in turn meant that every change to application software had to be made individually on over 700 PCs. (Now all applications are held centrally and disseminated via the use of thin client software.) An average of 175 PCs had to be returned to the lease company each year which necessitated IT staff having to remove all the data and clean the devices so they could be returned in good working order and there were no breaches of data protection.
4.4 During 2003-04, the IT Team carried out extensive R&D to determine whether Citrix or VMWare would be the more cost effective solution for the Council’s present and future needs. They decided that Citrix provided the better solution when measured against the key business requirements for the
CABINET (25.3.14) Access to Service programme namely: thin client technology; provision of home working and hot desking; and high levels of security. The latter was a major factor and is likely to become even more so as local authorities move towards making greater use of central government public service platforms.
The Advantages of Citrix
4.5 The use of Citrix had generated significant savings both directly and indirectly as part of the Council’s Access to Services programme and office accommodation project. The Access to Services programme, which laid the foundation for the office accommodation project, realised savings of £866K. These savings included: centralised office accommodation and the closure of Town Lodge and other NHDC buildings; secure home working capabilities – about three quarters of NHDC’s 400 staff have home working capability, with some 160-170 logged on remotely every day; a reduction in IT support staff by 5 posts; the use of more efficient thin client technology; procurement savings by having hardware operational for longer; energy usage savings from the virtualisation of servers – the Council now only had 10 physical servers; relatively low costs – the current annual Citrix revenue costs are £12,581 a year.
Future Requirements
4.6 Howard said that a major objective - and a major challenge - for the IT Service over the next 3 to 5 years would be to support the implementation of the Access to Services Strategy. This was underpinned by the e-Government agenda, a major component of which is the greater deployment of technology. The IT Team would need to provide technical support during the implementation of new solutions, and consultancy in the form of business analysis to the various project teams.
Users’ Experiences of Citrix: Officer and Member Surveys
4.7 The IT Team had conducted a survey of NHDC officers using the same questions which had been used in the councillors’ survey. 51 officers had taken part and it had highlighted relatively few problems. This was consistent with the very small number of inquiries received by the IT helpdesk. The group noted that about 20% had experienced some difficulties accessing the IT system and some 10% with using applications once they were in. The IT Team considered that these were probably infrequent users whose sporadic use of Citrix meant they were unaccustomed to the system.
4.8 The councillors’ survey had received 11 responses. It revealed that a good proportion of members had difficulties with both access to Citrix and with running applications. There was a general desire amongst respondents for easier access and a faster response from applications. There was also a
CABINET (25.3.14) request too that Citrix could be accessed from mobile and other sorts of devices.
4.9 Howard said that a new version of Citrix, Citrix 6.5, was due to be rolled out across the Council. It would be faster and more reliable. IT staff are also looking at the facility to synchronise passwords. It would anticipate which programmes to launch based on previous preferences and run them behind the scenes. Sessions would be kept open longer and the desktop would replicate the office screen which was more user friendly than the older versions of Citrix. The Council was in the final phase of migrating to the new version which might account for problems which arose towards the end of 2013.
Discussion
4.10 Members concluded that there were few advantages in replacing Citrix with another system. While acknowledging the problems that many members had had, Citrix was a good system which worked well for the majority of users and changing it would be both expensive and disruptive. The replacement costs of doing so would be £366,341 (capital and revenue costs in year 1), with revenue costs in the second year of £43,500.
4.11 The group considered that many members had suffered bad experiences in the Council’s early days of Citrix. This and other teething problems, coupled with unfamiliarity with the system, had put them off using Citrix and left them reluctant to respond to the IT Team’s efforts to re-engage with them. Many had found ways of working around Citrix and they were now reluctant to give it another chance. This was borne out by the IT Team’s statistics on member usage: There are 18 members who had actively logged in to Citrix since the 1st January 2014. 12 members had not used Citrix at all during 2013 A further 7 members had never used Citrix at all.
4.12 The Council had assisted in this work around by arranging for emails to be forwarded automatically to members’ personal e mail accounts following members’ requests for this service. This worked fairly well but there could be problems in replying to the original sender; and of course it did not give members access to the full range of applications available to Citrix users. Members heard that impending data protection protocols driven by the Public Services Network (a Cabinet Office public sector standard) might threaten this arrangement - perhaps by as early as 27 June 2014 - so it was important that members understood the consequences of this.
4.13 There was also another category of Member who either could not use Citrix because they are forbidden from loading it onto their work computer; or chose not to do so because of compatibility and synchronisation problems. For these members, the Good Technology app - which allows users to see @north-herts.gov.uk e mails, calendars, task and contacts on mobile devices - might prove a useful solution. To date there were 6 members already using
CABINET (25.3.14) the Good Technology app and IT will be working with other members where appropriate in the roll out of this technology
4.14 The group considered that members would have different needs and this needed to be taken into account when assessing their IT future needs. Some simply wanted to receive their @north-herts.gov.uk e mails, whereas others wished to have access to a greater range of applications and facilities. Cllr Hone said that any new initiatives should be voluntary and not imposed on members.
4.15 The group concluded that the IT Service should re-engage with all members individually to find a personal solution – either Citrix Web Access or Good Technology App – which will allow them the information and access they needed.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
5.1 The group would like to thank those who contributed to the task and finish group. Howard Crompton, Head of Revenues, Benefits and IT, NHDC Vic Godfrey, Information Communication Technology Manager, NHDC Justin Goodwin, Technical Services Manager, NHDC Toby Le Sage, ICT Business Manager, NHDC Gavin Midgley, Web Manager, NHDC Sarah Dobor, Communications Manager, NHDC Brendan Sullivan, Scrutiny Officer, NHDC The parish and town councils of North Hertfordshire The councillors of North Hertfordshire Participants in NHDC’s website survey NHDC officers for their participation in the Citrix survey
CABINET (25.3.14) Annex 1 North Hertfordshire District Council Overview and Scrutiny Task and Finish Group
The Council’s Website and the Citrix Connection
SCOPE (v1.0a)
Terms of reference To consider ways to improve the usability cost effectiveness and efficiency of the Council’s website to improve customer service and encourage self service. To consider improvements to the Citrix connection for users
Expected Outcomes A better, more user friendly website A better Citrix connection for users
Timeframe 11 December 2013 & 27 January 2014
Link with Council Priorities Working with local communities.
Potential Witnesses and Community Engagement Customer Services Manager Strategic Director Customer Services Communications Manager Head of Revenues, Benefits & IT IT Manager IT Business Manager Web Manager Survey of NHDC Councillors Survey of Parish and Town Councils Public Survey through NHDC website
Key Questions What makes a good (local authority) website? What works well with NHDC’s website – and what doesn’t? What does visitor feedback say? (note – no structured feedback arrangements since ‘Govmetric’ discounted?) Is there plans to improve the website and what do they cover? What problems do members and officers have with their Citrix connection?
Green Issues Nothing obvious
Information documents Socitm survey on local authority websites
CABINET (25.3.14) Previous data from Govmetrics, &3Cs SOCITIM good practice guide LGA Knowledge Hub GovConnect requirements Web stats Future Plans for the Web Site
Membership: Cllr Sal Jarvis (Chair) Cllr Jean Green Cllr David Leal-Bennett Cllr Mike Rice Cllr Deborah Segalini
Portfolio Holders: Cllr Terry Hone & David Levett Lead Officers: Howard Crompton & John Robinson Support Officer: Brendan Sullivan
CABINET (25.3.14)