News and events on council websites

A study of 410 councils in the UK and Ireland reveals major differences in the way local government manages online news and events.

News and events are important ways for councils to communicate with their residents. They form part of a council’s mandate to inform and educate people on what’s happening in their area and directly affect the services that they offer to the public.

The joint research carried out by Colin Stenning, Director of Digital Health Check and Stella Power, Annertech’s Managing Director, was hoping to shed a light on how news and events content are viewed and managed by local authorities.

This included looking at whether there were any differences in the way news sections were hosted, how long news articles are kept, how easy it is to search these articles and how far back users can go, as well as how councils send out news.

We also looked at events calendars, and whether councils make use of them. If so, are they used effectively? Who can access these calendars?

News on council websites

A news section is an important tool that a council can use to keep the public up to date with important information.

The majority of news sections tend to be part of the council’s website.

Where do councils host their news sections?	On-site	Off-site
Number of councils	362 (88.3%)	48 (11.7%)

Where councils host their news sections

But news sections can create challenges for councils. To ensure that the information on offer is indeed news, not old information, there needs to be a steady stream of updated information.

The more content councils have, the more server storage they’ll need to accommodate more articles.

A significant number of councils (nearly 48%) enable people to sign up to receive news by email in the form of a newsletter. Actively sending out news is likely to be more effective than expecting people to regularly visit a council website for news.

Can people sign up to receive news and/or events?	Yes	No
Number of councils	131 (47.8%)	143 (52.2%)

Number of councils that enable people to sign up to receive news by email

There are various email newsletter resources for councils. The majority of councils use GovDelivery (45%) and email newsletter listing 30%. Intuit Mailchimp is used by 17% of councils, with the rest (8%) using other resources, including RSS feed, Brevo and Dotmailer.

Can people sign up to receive news and/or events?	Yes	No
Number of councils	131 (47.8%)	143 (52.2%)

The largest number of councils only choose to keep and display news for between one and two years. A significant number of councils choose to keep news for longer, going back 10-15 years. The longest news ‘archive’ goes back to 2000. Many councils claim to have news archives, but they aren’t true archives because news articles are not separated out from site content.

Why would a council want to keep an archive? Certain articles may be valuable for research or as a public record, but the vast number of articles are ephemeral and could arguably not have a long lifespan.

Also, a large archive could create issues when it comes to the search function. Unless news articles are excluded from general search results or there is a separate news search, this could potentially cause problems for users. This includes presenting out-of-date information and broken links.

Possible solutions to these problems

If councils are going to keep news longer than two years they could create a separate news archive and provide a separate news search.

Around half the councils enable people to filter news articles by date. This is helpful, especially when councils keep news for a long period.

Is there a way to filter news by date?	Yes	No
Number of councils	202 (49.3%)	208 (50.7%)

Number of councils that enable people to filter news articles by date

Filtering by date helps users to find the information or article they’re looking for, especially if they are searching for a specific article or piece of information.

Another solution is to tag articles that are older with a note that tells the user this. Some councils helpfully present a warning that articles are more than a couple of years old. These include Rother District Council, Belfast City Council and Fife Council (see example below).

Events on council websites

Public events have both social and economical benefits for communities, so much so that they are often included as part of a local government’s strategic plan.

Yet council events calendars are not widely available on council websites. Only 17% of councils display events on their homepage, and about a quarter of the councils have a council events directory.

Is there a council events directory?	Yes	No
Number of councils	101 (24.9%)	305 (75.1%)

Number of councils with an events directory

Several councils have an events calendar which has no events. This could be because maintaining a council events calendar is challenging or because some councils do not have the resources to maintain them or see them as a priority.

Nearly 20% of councils allow users to add events, but only 6% allow users to register for events.

In theory, a council events calendar is a great idea. All the council’s events are visible in one place and it could make for users to see what’s happening when and, depending on the calendar, they could easily save events to their personal calendars for quick and easy reminders.

However, the calendar needs to be properly maintained, otherwise users aren’t getting the full picture or accurate information, which would be worse than not having a calendar at all.

Conclusion

News is an important and popular service that local government offers the public, yet only 17% of councils present news on their home page. The life span of news articles differs from council to council, but generally doesn’t have a long life span and archiving seems to be hit or miss.

Although events are important to local governments, both in terms of service, communication and a public relations mandate, their presentation on council websites also seems to be hit and miss. This is a potentially great service that constituents are missing out on, but it will also take dedication and resources to ensure that it is managed correctly.