Website Providers Geographical spread

Council websites have slowly been replacing the front doors of main Administration buildings now for several years ,as gradually more and more transactions and services become ‘E’ enabled. There is a solid expectation that the information is up to date, proactive and responsive, and that can only be done if the content authoring and publishing mechanisms are easy to use with contemporary features.

There has been a consolidation as many providers have developed partnerships with the state based local government providers. In Western Australia it is Market Creations, In Queensland it is Jadu, and in South Australia it is Squiz. Many councils are taking advantage of the offerings of these organisations based on the validation these vendors receive from having solutions used by a number of councils that operate within the same jurisdiction, with mostly similar requirements.

The data we have is for the current year, as we have only started collecting data for this category, but there is often a geographical and size basis for the decisions of many councils. The state-based preferred supplier arrangements are a significant factor in this fact, but they’re also seems to be a strong push for Squiz in Tasmania and Open Cities in Victoria.

The size of councils is also a factor.

There are many councils who use local agencies to build their websites, and this adds to the local flavour of these numbers.

When choosing a solution, councils really need to select a provider that fits within their budget. If you are very innovative and want to design your own website, you will need an implementation budget in excess of $100,000. If you are happy to use a standard template which will give you limited ability to configure, you can generally achieve that for less than $50,000. If you do decide to go for a standard template design, you will need to understand what is included, and what isn’t. You will also need to understand what you can change in the template.

From a features point of view, councils should decide what they want to provide. Considerations will be;

Ability to search content – This is very important. The website will hold a lot of data, so the search facilities must be forgiving. People must be able to find what they want without having to use ‘precise’ language and search parameters.
Integration to third parties – Councils often need integration to third party applications that allow citizens to interact with the council. These could be payments, applications, permits, etc. and in some cases if the ERP vendor cannot provide these solutions, a good form designer will be important.
Security – The website is the portal to the world. It can also be an entry point to the council. Security must limit the ability of bad actors to access the councils back-office solutions or valuable data that council holds or to deface or alter the websites content, or even infect visitors’ devices.
Chatbots – Not all councils will want chatbots, but you will probably not want to limit the ability to utilise them at a later point.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – These are important for ensure that all people can utilise the website.
Content Management Solutions – These must allow staff to change information easily, although they must allow information to be work flowed to ensure checks are conducted on published content.
Analytics – The ability to see what pages are being accessed and the behavior of people utilising the website.

This is just a snapshot into the topic of Content Management Systems for Councils and the current marketplace.

If you have further questions, please reach out to our team and we are more than happy to assist.

Speak to our Specialist Advisor

Author

David Collyer

Partner

David has experienced over 20 years’ leading private, commercial operations and government authorities in best practice ICT Strategies, Business Processes and Project Management Methodologies.

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