Isle of Wight council has, again, been given a one out of four rating for their iwight Website.
Socitm, the association that represents ICT professionals working in Local Authorities, surveyed all 433 local authority Websites, evaluating them to establish how easy to use members of the public would find them.
Last year, when the council’s Website dropped from two stars to one star in the survey, the council communications department, who controls the council’s Website said, “We disagree with some of the assessments and we will be questioning those.” We contacted Socitm four months after the 2012 report and they told us there had been no contact from IW council.
New site originally due last year
Back in March 2012 the council said they planned to “launch the redesigned site in the coming months.” They followed this in July, then saying “we expect to launch later this year.”
The council now says that they hope to launch the new version of the site within weeks.
New site to “reduce the amount of content online”
We’ve raised concerns with the council that they’ve said that one of “the main drivers for updating the website” is “to reduce the amount of content online and focus on what is important to you.”
We’re awaiting a reply as to what will be removed; how the public will access this information in the future; what the criteria for removal is; and who is overseeing this.
