South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council Awarded 4 Stars for Website Excellence

GOSS Interactive congratulates South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council for receiving 4 stars in the Socitm Better Connected 2012 report.

Plymouth, United Kingdom, August 05, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Socitm, the Society of IT Managers in the public sector, publish the annual Better Connected 2012 report into the usability and performance of 433 local authority websites. This year only 5% of councils were awarded 4 stars, and South Tyneside Councils was described as “a great example to others” by the reviewers.

The South Tyneside Council website, which uses GOSS iCM (intelligent Content Management) to provide a strongly content-based approach to enhanced customer engagement, was praised by reviewers in overall and every assessment criteria.

The Socitm reviewer stated “Goodness, this site was such a pleasure to use and review. Great landing page designs that were clearly presented with the most useful things being linked directly underneath the subheadings. Thoroughly enjoyed this site, it was so simple and can tell that the user experience has been very carefully considered in the site's creation. A great example for others.”

Councillor Edward Malcolm, Lead Member Resources and Innovation, South Tyneside Council (right) delights in being presented a 4 star plaque by Andy Orchard, Business Development Manager at GOSS Interactive.

Councillor Edward Malcolm, Lead Member Resources and Innovation, South Tyneside Council added: “Providing an excellent service for our residents, business and visitors is a top priority for South Tyneside Council. We are delighted to be recognised with four stars for the hard work the team has put in to making the website a great success. Our partners GOSS Interactive have been extremely supportive in helping us deliver our website.”

Rob McCarthy, CEO, GOSS Interactive adds, “GOSS Interactive are very pleased that South Tyneside Council have been awarded 4 stars in Socitm Better Connected 2012 for delivering such a useful and usable website. GOSS Interactive is already helping our clients deliver their future digital strategy, including mobile websites, in preparation for Socitm Better Connected 2013.”

GOSS Interactive have been delivering GOSS iCM Web Content Management and website publishing software for over 10 years. Today it is in use by major corporations and public sector organisations where it is the market leader in use by over 50 of the 433 UK local authorities.

In the report, over 65% of GOSS clients have been rated amongst the highest in the country with a further 28% maintaining their previous good scores.

South Tyneside Council website: http://www.southtyneside.info

Notes

Praise from the Socitm reviewers on each assessment criteria for South Tyneside Council’s website.

“Very simple to find the [job application] information, well presented making it easy to scan and intuitive to use/find. Good information about working for the council about employees terms, conditions and benefits. Like the feed of the job vacancies on the homepage so it actually lists some job titles so that it is more than just a 'job vacancies' link.”

“Could not fail to miss this [object to planning application] signposting from the landing page, the first link presented was 'search and comment on planning applications. Clear statement provided saying that if the application was open for comment I would see the 'comment on this application' link within the application itself. Lots of useful quick links for finding new planning applications, recently decided, even a useful map where I could click on an application number and be taken straight to the application etc.”

“My property information had already been set by my search for planning applications so when I came to the rubbish collection information it was already right in front of me on pretty much every page that had information of use, great!”

“Great feature on the pay my council tax page which still showed my address information, and was presenting me with by council tax band information and how much I paid.”

“Great promotion of the task [renewing a library book].”

“Really easy to find [getting help at home] and navigate once you are there. The information is not confusing and with some gaps of information filled in such as eligibility criteria, this will provide a very helpful service to people.”

“[School terms dates] were presented in a calendar view on the page with colour coding for holidays, inset days and bank holidays, so no need for this council to provide a downloadable version for people to print out as when printing the page itself it was in a perfect format to hang on your wall already.”

“Obvious list [of local democracy involvement] presented of current consultations as soon as you get to the consultation page, with clear promotion of their start and end times, link to the consultation finder for further past and present ones.”
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Pete Stevens
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