Bassetlaw District Council aims high with Immediacy

Background

Local Government websites are becoming an increasingly important source of information for the general public. This, coupled with the increased pressures on Councils to be more transparent and provide better services to the general public, has placed increased pressure on Councils to keep their web sites current and functional. Providing information on local contracts, amenities and Council services, they serve as a first point of contact for many constituents.

In the summer of 2006 it became apparent to Bassetlaw District Council that advantages could be gained by the Council converting from its existing Content Management System (CMS). This was based on a number of reasons including the high cost of support for the legacy system, a diminishing user base and a shortage of software skills resulting in poor technical support. Following extensive research to assess competing products and based primarily on its user-friendly content editing, a new CMS was purchased from Immediacy.

Requirements

The Council's website is seen as an extremely important resource as it enables 24/7 delivery of services. Through the website the general public can access much of the information they need on the Council and its services out of business hours. When identifying the factors which Bassetlaw District Council felt were necessary for an effective CMS the following two requirements prevailed:

Reduce the amount of technical knowledge required
Structure the content and make it easier to change

The Immediacy CMS was chosen due to its ease of use, cost effectiveness, and features putting it ahead of the competition. The Council was further impressed by Immediacy's proven track record in the local government sector.

With a smaller install base, Bassetlaw District Council's previous CMS had less market experience and the Council found it difficult to employ members of staff with the right skills. As a result the Council wanted a solution that required minimal training for content editors. The Immediacy CMS proved easy to pick up and implement and the web administrators were able to train the rest of the staff on how to use the CMS. Approximately 20 employees from within the Council use the Immediacy CMS and only five or six of those are technically trained.

"The old site was difficult to update and was being managed by only a few people who had to be technically trained in order to use it. This was slowing up the process and it was taking far too long to get timely content uploaded to the live site," said Mick Coley, IT Services Manager, Basssetlaw District Council. "When it came to ease of use Immediacy was the best solution. Whilst editing in Immediacy, what you see is what you get, meaning that you are actually typing and inputting information as it will appear on the live site. This made modifying and publishing content a much faster process".

A large consideration for the Council when making the decision to implement the Immediacy CMS was to ensure they comply with Government initiatives including the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The Immediacy accessibility compliance checker helps website managers ensure content complies with the recent accessibility legislations by testing content as it is being created and edited. The Immediacy CMS is expected to help Bassetlaw District Council achieve AAA accessibility compliance as it is now able to check its content for accessibility compliance in the first instance. Immediacy also gives the Council the opportunity to transform a page into 'text only', which enables people to use a screen reader more easily. The new website will incorporate many more accessibility features, ensuring a wider audience with easier access to the information, particularly those with disabilities.

A further reason for implementing a CMS was to help improve the Council's Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) score. CPA measures how well Councils are delivering services for local people and communities. The essence of a CPA framework is that it draws on a range of information such as performance indicators, assessments of corporate capacity, audit and inspection reports, and stakeholder opinions to reach a single judgment about the performance of a local body. Since its introduction in 2002, CPA has helped Councils focus on key areas of improvement and has helped government and regulators target support where it is most needed. The Commission assesses the performance of Councils and the services that they provide for local people.

"As a market leading Content Management System Immediacy provides many of the standards that are required of local government websites, such as accessibility, and has provided a better and more satisfactory user experience," commented Coley.

A1 Housing a partner organisation of Bassetlaw District Council, took the decision to implement the Immediacy CMS based on the recommendation made by the Council. A1 Housing is the management organisation that takes care of the day to day management of the Council's housing stock. The A1 Housing decision was two fold, firstly by installing the same CMS as Bassetlaw District Council, it did not incur the full licence and support costs of the legacy system; and secondly, the ease of use and comprehensive back-up team provided by Immediacy gave A1 Housing the tools with which to support its growing user base.

"The new system has given us more functionality than before and switching to the Immediacy suite on the recommendation of Bassetlaw District Council has saved us a lot of money," said Karen Bayliss, IT Systems Support Officer, A1 Housing. "The Immediacy CMS was extremely easy to implement and we have been able to manipulate it to suit our needs."

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