• designed for elected members, chief executives, and senior council managers
• also useful for web designers, developers and software suppliers to local authorities

A 20 page executive briefing Local government transformation and the council website, based on findings of the Better connected 2006 report and the Socitm Insight Website Take-up Service, has been published.  Better connected 2006 is based on the eighth annual survey of local authority websites published by the Socitm Insight on March 1.

Local government transformation and the council website has been designed specifically for elected members, chief executives, and senior council managers who want to find out how a council can achieve a local authority website that satisfies the criteria 'useful, usable, and used' and most important, why this matters more than ever.

The briefing will also be extremely useful to web designers, developers and software suppliers to local authorities who want to increase their understanding of this important and growing market for their products.  The briefing provides:

• Headline results from Better connected 2006
• Details of the best council sites in 2006
• The role of the website in council transformation
• Information and best practice examples around the 'useful, usable and used' criteria
• Headline results on achievement of priority outcomes from evidence in the survey
• Evidence about joining up of council services via websites and portals
• The future: where the focus for development should be in 2006 and beyond

According to Martin Greenwood, programme manager for Socitm Insight, the briefing is a 'must-read' for policy and decision-makers in local government. "The days when the website was seen as a toy for technical people are over.  The transformation agenda requires a much stronger commitment from most local authorities in the way they manage this self-service channel than they have shown hitherto.  New ways of working depend on a website that is focussed on customer needs and robust enough to manage the workload."

A pressing concern for local authorities is the £6.8m national advertising campaign to raise awareness of services available through local government websites due to start in earnest after the council elections in May.  Councils whose websites are not up to the mark in time for the campaign will miss out on this opportunity to boost usage of their website and start to benefit from this highly efficient means of delivering council services and information.

Local government transformation and the council website is free of charge to Socitm Insight subscribers, who can download the report from the Socitm website.  Others can buy the report for £50 (£40 to Socitm members whose organisation does not subscribe to Socitm Insight). Anyone who buys the briefing and then decides to buy the full Better connected 2006 report will have the cost credited against the £375 (£350 Socitm members) purchase price of the full report.