Socitm survey finds praise for council web sites

The government's strategy of driving public sector services online received a ringing endorsement this month, as a new Socitm survey revealed that the number of visitors to council web sites increased by 40 percent last year.

In its research, the association for public sector IT managers found high satisfaction levels among visitors, with 80 percent claiming they found all or part of the information they were looking for, and more than three-quarters saying they would return to the web site.

A spokeswoman for Socitm said that the results were very encouraging. And she predicted that traffic will continue to climb this year, partly because the government is planning to launch a new eServices publicity campaign in the coming weeks to encourage users.

The growing popularity of their web sites will eventually allow councils to save cash by cutting spending on other information channels, according to the spokeswoman. Oldham council has already replaced leaflets with online PDFs to advertise many services.

Elsewhere, pressure on public sector IT departments to trawl through records to respond to Freedom of Information requests appears to be easing.

A new report from the Department of Constitutional Affairs found that government agencies received 7,700 requests during the fourth quarter of 2005, which is down by almost half from 13,600 during the first quarter.