Thumbs down on Government websites
Government websites have been given the thumbs down with a 'could do better' message from an independent survey into 20 of the flagship Government websites.
The survey was commissioned by website strategy and design company, Interactive Bureau, London, and the research was carried out by Porter Research, who also publish an annual review of FTSE-100 Web sites.
The report found that three-quarters of the websites surveyed were in need of immediate attention in one area or another, which is taken as a strong indicator that hundreds of Government and quasi-governmental web sites almost certainly have serious problems in them - and also need attention.
The report concluded that the Government should pause the web aspect of its £5 billion programme now and put right what it has already done. The Government has repeatedly stated its objective of having all its services online by 2005. But the 200-page report says that half way through that programme, there are worrying signs that the web aspect of it is in trouble.
The report conceded that great advances have been made 'but these are of little value, if the web site - the point at which the public meets its Government online - does not work properly or is not user-friendly. And all too often it is not'.
The Prime Minister's site is one of the worst offenders, being described as 'a mess - in need of a thorough overhaul from top to bottom'. The Number 10 site only scores 40.75 per cent and is rated 19th out of the 20 'flagship' governmental sites tested in detail against criteria based on the Government's own guidelines for them. The only one to rank below the Prime Minister's site was that of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (40 per cent).
The Number 10 site came in for particular criticism in the report. It said: "What is the point of the Prime Minister - the prime mover in bringing the Government to the people via the Web - having a site, which announces the opportunity for foreign journalists to ask him questions, yet gives no opportunity for members of the British public to do so?
"It scores so badly, because its navigation is inept, because of a lack of attention to detail, because it is poorly maintained, because the coding of it is of a low standard, because whole sections of it are inappropriately named, because of its slow speed of loading, because it does not work properly with some browsers, and because it allows no provision for members of the public to contact either the Prime Minister or his office."
And it points out that if you type 'Number 10' into the Yahoo UK search engine, the Prime Minister's site comes out below that of '10 Rillington Place', the location of an infamous 1940s murder case.
The report estimated that any site that scored 65 per cent or less of the available mark - which was three quarters of them - was in need of immediate attention. Not all Government sites failed to meet the criteria. The best site examined was The Department for Education & Skills (78.5 per cent) with the Equal Opportunities Commission, the UK Passport Agency, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Department of Health achieving more than 65 per cent and earning the description of 'beacons of excellence in a dark night'.
Rodney Tyler, Managing Director of Interactive Bureau said: "The choice of the 20 sites - out of the 1000-plus Government and quasi-governmental sites - was made principally on the grounds that these are the sites we would expect to be the best - the flagships, if you like, of the drive to e-Government.
"Ten of them are the sites of the principal public-facing Ministries, including the Prime Minister's own site - and the other 10 are the sites of key public-facing "citizen-focussed" organisations - the ones where it is most likely the public is going to want to interact with its government.
"Together, these are the 20 sites you would expect to be the standard bearers of usability and accessibility, good design and technical excellence.
"By judging these, which should be among the best, we can get a fair idea of the overall state of the rest - and hence a benchmark of the progress of the web sites in delivering e-Government.
"This should be a wake-up call for them."
Among the common faults found by the report are:
+ A lack of basic services and information, which you would expect to be present on Government web sites;
+ A failure to respond to the simplest of email requests for information;
+ Poor, or inconsistent design;
+ Inadequate navigation, which leaves visitors lost and confused;
+ Slow load speeds.
And others still have large numbers of technical errors, which inhibit their working.
Adrian Porter of Porter Research said: "Perhaps the most widespread and aggravating fault is the presentation of information to the public. All too often masses of material, full of unexplained jargon and convoluted incomprehensible English has simply been dumped into official websites with no thought of preparing it for the public, or helping them understand it.
"It leads one to ask what is the point of spending all that money with the aim of bringing Government closer to the people, if the end result is the same forbidding "closed" mentality of officialdom writ larger than ever before?"
A Cabinet Office spokesman told UKTECH: "A recent (April 2002) comprehensive study of government websites by the National Audit Office, which is truly independent, found a major positive shift over the last three years in the performance of government websites.
"The report says the 2005 target is a valuable incentive to galvanise Government departments to get online and since 1999 Government has given a strong lead in promoting both information-based and transactional services online.
"The report, Government on the Web II, showed substantial progress in delivering joined up initiatives, exploiting economies of scale and avoiding duplication across departments.
This is the second occasion the Government has come in for criticism about its own IT delivery. As UKTECH reported recently, the e-envoy, Andrew Pinder, accused the Government of adopting a 'Henry Ford' attitude of one size fits all and warned that the UK will only meet its targets and take its place in the IT league table as a key provider of e-Government if the Government can get past that attitude. He had previously described the Prime Minister's IT targets as 'unhelpful'.