Partnership Makes Online Access Easier For All

A partnership with Mid Beds District Council has helped South Bedfordshire District Council’s revamped website leap dramatically up the charts to become the 25th most user friendly and accessible local government website.

With a score of 8.2 out of ten, the re-launched South Beds site (www.southbeds.gov.uk) leapt to joint 25th from 405th position (out of 463) in March 2007.  This was as a result of its new design, which was developed thanks to a consistently healthy partnership with neighbour Mid Beds District Council.

To put this into perspective, the new Bedfordshire County Council website is in 416th position with a score of 2.75 out of 10 (a drop from their previous position).

The independent “SiteMorse” rankings measure the technical quality of all Local Government websites each month, testing their accessibility, performance, functions, and compliance with national standards and coding quality.

After the Bedfordshire County Council led Citizens Services Partnership collapsed in early 2006 South and Mid Beds district councils decided to carry on with their joint IT working without the County Council.

Together, a team of IT officers from both district councils  created new websites for South Bedfordshire, Mid Beds and www.citizone.org, a “super-search engine” which searches all Bedfordshire public sites.

Rob Wood, Interim Head of Strategic ICT, at South Bedfordshire District Council, said: “This gives concrete proof that our Transforming Government Partnership is successful and shows what can be achieved through proper cooperative design and planning. We are confident that we will maintain high scores and a top quartile position. I am sure our colleagues at Mid Beds will experience a similar high score when they move over to the new system in the next couple of months.

“I would also like to publicly thank the four staff involved for all their hard work over an extended period of time - in particular Tina Bykowski and Garrett Moorhouse - for their commitment which enabled us to achieve this.”

Clive Jones, Director of Customer Services, Mid Beds District Council, added: “We have been working together closely on a range of customer service initiatives. In addition to our web working, we are setting up Citizone Points of Presence across our areas (Biggleswade, Ampthill, Leighton Linslade, Houghton Regis) providing a range of face-to-face services and managed by a Mid Beds officer. This close cooperation shows that local district councils are more flexible and responsive to local needs than county wide authorities which are remote and distant from local communities and neighbourhoods.”