How did it all begin?
Before starting Digital Health Check I managed a council web team for almost 25 years. During that time I became frustrated with the lack of information and guidance available to web teams. Furthermore until at least the last five years there was also a distinct lack of collaboration between council web teams. So in the past council web teams worked largely in isolation to create, manage and deliver websites and digital services, constantly reinventing the wheel over and over again. With over 400 local authorities in the UK and Ireland this was extremely costly and wasteful.
One of my biggest frustrations as a web manager was the lack of information about content management systems, particularly as it seemed that we needed to change ours every 2-5 years to keep up-to-date. So in response I set about researching CMS across UK and Ireland and making this information available to colleagues to help them to make more informed choices about the CMS they use.
I’ve continued to keep this CMS listing up-to-date for over 5 years, but have now diversified into reviewing a range of other topics related to council websites.
So far this has included:
- Chatbots on council websites
- Accessibility overlays used by councils
- The promotion of services available to deaf people through council websites
What does the research involve?
The research involves reviewing how councils in the UK and Ireland deliver a service or meet a particular requirement (for example accessibility). I devise a range of questions related to this, review all councils using these questions and document them in an database (Airtable). Finally I consider any learning or best practice from this that I share via a brief blog post. Its not in depth or academic research, it’s simply a modest attempt to provide some insights on a range of topics that might be of interest to council web teams.
The reasons for doing this are:
- To provide a reference resource for council web teams
- To promote and celebrate best practice and innovation
- To encourage councils to reflect on what they are currently doing and consider if they need to make any changes
- To highlight possible issues and solutions
The overarching aim of this work is to encourage council web teams to stop reinventing the wheel and to collaborate by sharing information and advice.
How can you get involved?
I have done this work in isolation for too long and I am now looking for some help to maintain existing reviews and carry out new ones. I fully understand that the time you have to share is probably limited, so I’d like to suggest a range of different ways that you can get involved.
You can:
- Assist in discussing what to review and what reviews cover.
- Assist directly by reviewing councils and recording any findings in a database (Airtable).
- Assist with discussing the information that is gathered and reporting on best practice, things to consider or avoid, opportunities for collaboration and so on.
- Assist by reviewing any information that is gathered for your council, to make sure that it is accurate and up-to-date.
- Share some specific insights from your council about the topic being reviewed that has not been covered that might be of interest to others.
I’d encourage you to read some of the blog posts and research before getting in contact so that you have a better idea what’s involved. If you are still unclear how you can get involved then please get in touch as we can discuss it in more detail.
What research is currently underway?
I am currently reviewing the provision of News and Events on council websites and hope to complete this before the end of this year. What’s different about this review is that I am not working on it alone and I am actively looking to collaborate with others on it. Stella Power from Annertech has already kindly volunteered to help and I am hoping that others will get in contact and get involved.
Colin Stenning
Digital Health Check