Socitm briefing tells council top management teams how to improve digital and mobile engagement
Web and digital professionals association Socitm has published a briefing for top teams in local authorities showing how they can take advantage of digital and mobile technologies in response to the challenges of austerity.
Better connected 2013: a briefing for the top management team draws on research compiled for Socitm’s latest annual survey of all council websites.
As well analysing the performance of websites, the Better connected 2013 research also examined councils’ use of social media, email alerts, customer accounts and other digital tools for citizen engagement and service delivery. Key findings and lessons from this research are set out in the briefing.
In a section Responding to the rise of mobile, the briefing points out that the use of mobile devices for accessing council websites is increasing rapidly, thanks to the latest generation of smartphones and tablets.
Significantly, their use is making the web accessible to those who may not have access via desktop or laptops, a factor that has affected councils’ past commitment to online delivery of information and services.
Socitm data, says the briefing, suggests that around 23% of visits to council websites are now made on mobile devices. The figures show a rapid increase, with numbers already likely to peak above that level at certain times of the day, in certain conditions (eg severe weather) and for particular uses, like reporting potholes.
However, Better connected’s assessment of council website readiness for mobile rated just 8% of all councils as very good, and a further 17% as satisfactory. The remaining 75% were rated poor.
In the section Increasing citizens’ digital engagement the briefing highlights the fact that councils are now using online customer accounts to provide service users with the sort of facilities available from online banking or shopping. Users benefit from easy access to records about their use of council services, while the council benefits from data about service user activity and gains an extremely cost effective communications channel.
Better connected 2013 found 117 sites (27%) promoting a customer account, including the London Borough of Newham, which is using the ‘My Newham’ as part of what the council calls an ‘aggressive’ channel shift strategy. As at 11 February 2013, the council had over 67,000 customers registered, representing 46.9% of residential households.
Not all councils are so single-minded, with a good proportion of those with customer accounts failing to explain the benefits at the right point in the customer journey, or requiring the customer to log on separately to multiple accounts, a significant inconvenience.
Email alerts are also covered in the briefing, with 36% of councils presenting these in places that are easy to find. These cover a wide variety of services and functions, ranging from ‘What’s on?’, news, consultations, invitations to tender, council meetings, and changes on all or part of the website. Two of the most common are alerts about jobs (used by 49% of councils) and planning (14%).
One of the simplest ways to encourage ‘channel shift’ that a surprising 31% of councils continue to miss is advertising the availability of the council website when people try to call the council ‘out of hours’.
Finally, the briefing reports a disappointing result from councils when it comes to online access to a key element of citizen engagement, information about ‘my councillor’. Only 47% of sites met the Better connected standard on this task, which is low considering the democratic importance of access to information such as budgets, committee papers, political control and local consultations.
According to Martin Reeves, Chief Executive, Coventry City Council, and immediate Past President of SOLACE Better connected 2013 should be ‘required reading for every senior manager and chief executive in local government.’
As quoted in the briefing, he comments: ‘… it’s cheaper for us to do business online and it’s increasingly what our residents expect from us. We’ve been talking about improving the customer journey for people for years, now we have to combine this work with reducing demand for services as we face massive budget cuts.’
Better connected 2013: a briefing for the top management team is available now at www.socitm.net free of charge to Socitm Insight subscribers. Non-Insight subscribers who are members of Socitm can order it for £40 and all others for £50.
A few places are still available for the annual Learning from Better connected event which will take place on 15 May in London. Further details from www.socitm.net/events/event/309/