Council web site is tops

Herefordshire Council has topped the SiteMorse local authority website league table again, by obtaining the maximum score possible and beating more than 460 other UK council websites for the third consecutive month.

Every few minutes an automated tester accesses the council’s web site as a user and goes through page-by-page assessing speed, checking for any broken links, making sure the pages work as they should and that the site complies with national standards for accessibility. Scores are issued and fed back to the local authority on a regular basis.

Lawrence Shaw, chief executive of SiteMorse said: “SiteMorse has been testing websites for the last six years.  This is the first time one of the local government websites we have surveyed has achieved the maximum score of 10 out of 10. 

“We congratulate Herefordshire Council whose staff have been working hard to improve the quality, performance and accessibility of the council’s website.   This has resulted in them achieving top position out of over 460 local councils, for the last three months.”
 
Jane Jones, director of corporate and customer services said: “We have to earn our place at the top every day by constantly monitoring the site and acting very quickly if a problem arises.  If any of the sites that we link to go down, our scores suffer. 

“We have over 250 authors able to publish information on the council’s website, so we have to continually train people and make sure the system is tightly managed.  All this work requires a great team effort and the success of our website is down to teamwork.

“The next challenge is to make the information on the website more attractive and up-to-date.”

Over the next few weeks, the council will be introducing a questionnaire asking site visitors about their experience of using the site. The information gathered will be used to improve the content and make it easier for the public to find the information they need.