Chorley Council

Outcome of Expression of Interest: Not shortlisted

We have analysed that our current website is not currently fit for purpose and requires a redesign as identified in the Council’s Digital Strategy 2017-2020. The user journey and experience is unclear and needs a total redesign to ensure it meets the needs of our customers. New development is required to ensure that our online services are easy to access at a time and place that suits our customers; this includes responsiveness and accessibility on mobile devices. Redesign is required to allow customers to easily access services they require at the first point of contact, reducing the need for more expensive channels such as face to face and telephone contact. Top class user experience is required to encourage customers to use online services rather than other channels.  In this project we want to redesign and redevelop our external facing website, including engaging with customers to test the new design/journey to ensure it is simple and intuitive enough that users succeed first time, unaided so customers will choose to access services digitally as they will be far more straightforward and convenient that other channels.

Discovery evidence

The Council’s Digital Strategy was approved in June 2017 with the aim to provide the highest quality, customer focused digital services and maximise our use of technology to help us work more efficiently and deliver more for our residents. Each month the Council answers 12,000 calls and assists 2,000 customers in the customer service area. However only 1,100 service requests are received via our website. We will continue to need to reduce our operating costs, and the approach to delivering information and services to customers’ needs to be more efficient and effective making the best use of technology if we are going to succeed. We believe that one element of this is to ensure that customers are able to and prefer to access efficient services and information easily online, via our website. The Digital Efficiency Report documents that online transactions can be 20 times cheaper than by phone, 30 times cheaper than by post and as much as 50 times cheaper than face to face. Developing a high quality online service will therefore not only enable the public to access services quickly and conveniently, at a time and in ways that suit them, it will save the Council money.

https://democracy.chorley.gov.uk/documents/s75619/DigitalStrategy2017.pdf

  • Digital leadership training (for council leaders, service managers or senior executives)
  • Digital and agile awareness
  • Introduction to user research
  • Introduction to service design
  • Introduction to delivery management