For the past three months we have been working with digital partner FutureGov to explore and firm up our digital plans for the coming years.
FutureGov presented us with their final report last week and our Dorsetforyou.com Board, made up of senior staff from our partner councils, considered their recommendations this week.
We asked FutureGov to explore whether we could re-use the code that the Government Digital Service (GDS) use on www.gov.uk for our digital platform (using funding secured from the Local Government Association). They concluded that it would be expensive and time-consuming to use in its entirety, but recommended we use large chunks of the GDS code, supplemented where required with custom code.
One key advantage of this approach would be to give us more flexibility and agility around the design of digital services, for example providing a platform that more fully meets the needs of traded services such as registrars, leisure centres and country parks.
We are asking FutureGov for more detail on the business benefits of this approach against staying with our existing supplier or moving to an alternative open-source content management system such as Drupal. A final decision will then be made in the coming weeks.
However, our Board did approve a number of things. These include a clear vision & mission statement and adopting new design principles to guide development of the new site. This will change how we create digital services, such as them being defined wholly around the needs of users and designed using data rather than intuition.
They also agreed to resource a project team to drive forward the re-design of all our digital content and services in line with our design principles from January 2016 to June 2017. This process will begin with half a dozen (yet to be agreed) prioritised services to be redesigned in the first half of 2016. We will post more around how this will work next week.
So, not quite full steam ahead, but the tracks are being laid ….
Hi Martin,
With all this talk of devolution and unitary authorities, how does this impact on your plans for Dorsetforyou? Are you still building with the existing partnership in mind?
Thanks, Cassie
Hi Cassie
The future shape of local government in Dorset is, as you say, uncertain. However, those delivering public services in the county will surely want to offer the best digital services for local people and will deliver them in partnership where that makes sense.
What we need is a partnership, a digital publishing platform and supporting policies which are agile enough to respond to change and new opportunities going forward.
Challenging times.