Background

East Dunbartonshire is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the north-west of the City of Glasgow. It contains many of the suburbs of Glasgow as well as the city's commuter towns and villages.

East Dunbartonshire also shares a border with West Dunbartonshire, Stirling, and North Lanarkshire. The council area covers part of the former county of Stirlingshire as well as parts of the former counties of Dunbartonshire and Lanarkshire.

The council area was formed in 1996, as a result of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, from part of the former Bearsden and Milngavie and Strathkelvin districts of the wider Strathclyde region.

In a 2007 Reader's Digest poll, East Dunbartonshire was voted the best place in the UK to raise a family.

Problem

At the time the project was launched East Dunbartonshire Council had maintained a council web site and staff Intranet for the best part of 10 years. Both sites were managed from one Lotus Notes based Content Management System. While there were some 3,000 pages in the CMS at various stages of development there were only 1,500 published pages in total with pages flagged as Web, Intranet or both.  

The core web and Intranet sites were linked to multiple Lotus Domino databases for additional services and content. For example:

• data extracts from back office systems e.g. planning
• bespoke functionality e.g. online vacancies, council directory
• internally hosted web based systems e.g. online library catalogue
• external hosted web based systems - GIS, ePayments  

While this existing CMS and web infrastructure had been adapted over time to meet the council’s evolving needs it had become outdated and unnecessarily complex. For example, editing functionality lacked a simple ‘WYSIWYG’ interface; lacked the ability to implement the latest Web 2.0 technologies and prevented EDC from complying with current web accessibility standards. The CMS was thus generally considered to have reached the end of its useful life and needed to be replaced.  

The need to develop the site and review CMS tools was undertaken as part of a 3 year web development strategy. The strategy included a review of the requirements, procedures and processes that govern the use of the CMS and recommendations on future web development.

Solution

East Dunbartonshire’s immediate problem was to replace the outmoded CMS with a modern, fully functional yet easy to learn and use alternative. The Alterian Content Manager - Corporate Edition stood out as a leader among the products considered as meeting these requirements. In addition Alterian CMC came with an impressive track record of use across many business sectors but particularly within local government. It thus had the advantage of delivering functionality quite specific to the needs of local councils ‘out of the box’, saving both time and costs during the implementation process. For example, East Dunbartonshire’s implementation partner, Unified Solutions were able to automatically create the required structure of the website by importing the Scottish Navigation List into the CMS, helping in a very practical way to fulfil an important element of the council’s web strategy; that the new website should conform to the best standards in terms of technology, accessibility and e-government.  

The new CMS has now been rolled out for use by some 50 content editors with very modest demands for training of typically no more than 1 day for each editor. This has allowed the quality of content to be improved during the migration process and, perhaps even more importantly, promises EDC the ability to maintain both the quality and currency of content in the future. A seemingly simple requirement that had proved very difficult to achieve in the past.  

While not originally part of the CMS tender it became clear that in order to fulfil the council’s web strategy an overhaul of the website design would be required. Stakeholders were assembled and guided through a comprehensive review process to clarify the goals, purpose, audiences and structure of the new website. This process defined the Information Architecture required to meet the council’s objectives for the website which was then documented and validated in the form of wireframe designs. Finally, creative designs and branding messages were applied to the bare wireframes before the whole website structure was created as actual, physical templates for later integration within the CMS. The new designs were tested and approved against strict accessibility standards by the Shaw Trust to fulfil another important objective of the council’s web strategy.  

The combination of new CMS and new information architecture have allowed East Dunbartonshire Council to launch a website that is truly fit for purpose now, but which has the flexibility to be further developed over time to meet the evolving needs of the Council and it’s residents for many years to come. In common with many in the Public Sector, cost savings and efficiencies are high on the priority list for the council in the immediate future and the new website, supporting the web strategy as it does, will be a major contributor to future efforts in this respect.

Results

Shortly after launch the new website proved its value during the severe weather conditions late in 2010. The council were able to instigate a system of updates to content covering the emergency conditions.

Information on school and road closures etc. were posted and updated on an hourly schedule in a way that had not been possible before. As word on the value of this information spread across East Dunbartonshire the council saw web traffic increase by a staggering 800% over what had been recorded in the past.

Requests for information that otherwise would have been directed at the already overstretched call centres.   Meanwhile Council Leader Rhondda Geekie is impressed with the new website and feels the improvements will greatly enhance the experience online visitors have when engaging with the Council.  She said, “I have been really impressed with the new website developments which certainly make it easier for our customers and online visitors to find out information about the Council and East Dunbartonshire.  From the new look homepage it is also easier to find information and to search for specific information or services.   I think that people visiting the new website will see a great improvement and would encourage everyone to see for themselves by logging on to the site and taking a look around.”  

In addition to the enhanced and better located A-Z and search facilities, the new website has improved navigation, and there are ‘quick links’ from the homepage to the most popular pages and homepage buttons where you can quickly ‘report it’, ‘pay for it’, ‘apply for it’ and ‘book it’.  

Councillor Geekie continued, “The Council’s website is the one way that our customers and visitors can interact with us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  It is a valuable source of information on all areas of the Council and it offers a great way to access Council services, request information, make payments and seek advice whenever it suits without being restricted to office hours.”