East Cambridgeshire District Council is providing timely and detailed online information on district elections thanks to expert assistance from Socitm Consulting. With good background understanding of the Council’s website functionality, Socitm Consulting designed and implemented a robust and sustainable online solution for the delivery of information on the 2007 and future District Council elections.
The project issues
The Council wanted a website to present information about the 2007 district elections that could be used as a sustainable solution for information delivery on future elections. Having previously assisted the Council with the development of its website, Socitm Consulting was commissioned to design and implement a database-driven website using the existing Council CMS, able to generate and display detailed and complex information on elections in accordance with elections procedures and timetables.
The Socitm Consulting solution
Socitm Consulting designed and developed a website with the following elements: SQL Server database tables and stored procedures, ASP scripts and HTML pages. Because of the high-profile nature of the information, full resilience and accessibility testing was carried out to ensure both the robustness and accessibility of the site.
After the website design was implemented it was populated by detailed information on the elections by Council staff using the existing Council CMS. The site is able to generate and display all election data including information on candidates and polling stations, and breakdown of results by ward, party and turnout in a range of forms including bar and pie charts.
The site was designed so that information could be added in advance, with automated display settings to ensure information could be released in accordance with the wider elections timetable.
The site was exhaustively tested to ensure its robustness and accessibility and a skills and knowledge transfer to the Council web team was facilitated to support the site’s ongoing functionality in the future.
The benefits to the client
With expert knowledge of the design and implementation of complex and robust websites, and with good knowledge of the Council’s existing online systems and processes, Socitm Consulting was able to assist the Council in ensuring the implementation of a robust, future-proof website capable of delivering complex election information. With strong public interest in election data and an expectation that the Council deliver information on elections quickly and accurately, Socitm Consulting enabled the Council to ensure accessible delivery of high quality election data into the long term.
Project identification
Client organisation: East Cambridgeshire District Council
Client contact: John Hill, Chief Executive, 01353 665555, john.hill@eastcambs.gov.uk
Lead consultant: andy.grant@socitm.gov.uk
Project no: 6103