Southwark Council has launched a new website based on the LocalGov Drupal content management system.
It has worked on the development over the past year with open source digital agency Big Blue Door.
Southwark’s chief digital and technology officer, Dionne Lowndes, said it chose to use LocalGov Drupal – an open source platform initially developed with support from the Government’s Local Digital Fund – partly because it provides access to new templates that will help the council to continually update the look and content of the website.
It also has the advantages of a lively community of local government users to support improvement, and avoids the risk of vendor lock-in, with the subsequent promise of best value over the long term.
Audit and rewrite
The launch follows an audit of all the information on the website and rewriting of its content, reducing the total amount and changing the location of some pages with the aim of making it easier for residents to find the right information. All of the contact information for services has been collated on a ‘Contact us’ page, and there is a new ‘Your Community’ feature where users can find out how to get involved in community projects.
Lowndes said the search engine has been update as the one of the old website was a “pain point”.
“We've implemented a customised search feature that we can further refine and customise so that users can use it to confidentially navigate the website,” she said.
Other changes include a more modern look and feel for the ‘Southwark Presents’ events section, and a function for the popular tasks section on the home page to regularly update to keep the pages with the most hits front and centre.
Geospatial feature plan
There is also a plan for a geospatial feature named ‘Where I Live’, which will enable users to provide their postal code to be taken to a page providing information such as their local councillors, closest libraries and leisure centres and next bin collection days.
“We're committed to the continuous improvement of the new website and hope to build more interactive features,” Lowndes added.
LocalGov Drupal is currently indicating that 50 councils are now using the platform.
