What people say about our site
Commendations
Better
Connected SOCITM survey 2008 - earned Transactional status,
meaning that a citizen, business or organisation can not only find
information on the website easily, but can also use a full range of
online forms for reporting, applications and payments.
The content of the website was rated as excellent in the survey.
The website overall was rated the best shire district website in
the North West and was in the top 16 shire district websites in
Britain.
SOCITM reviewers comments about our website for
2008
"There is an excellent 'Find my Nearest' where I can find car
parks, libraries, sports centres etc."
"This site has some excellent touches such as good use of online
forms and a find my nearest function which is truly useful. There
is a great attention to detail and there is lots of good
content."
"It is a good site. The navigation is solid and consistent."
In the 2005 'Better Connected' survey, Allerdale was one
of only 19 councils rated as close to Transactional
status.
Better Connected SOCITM survey - earned a
Content Plus rating and cited as an example of best practice in the
2002 'Better Connected' survey by the Society of Information
Technology Management, the professional association for ICT
managers. Council websites are graded at four levels by SOCITM;
Promotional, Content, Content Plus and Transactional - based on the
level of information and interaction provided. Allerdale's was the
only Cumbrian site, and one of only 27 shire districts, to achieve
Content Plus status.
Ordnance Survey - Quoted Allerdale website as
an example of best practice in the use of Internet Street
Mapping.
Progress in Implementing e-Government Report -
23rd out of 388 local authority websites assessed (ranked
10th).
Audit Commission
The Audit Commission recently conducted an
inspection on accessibility at the council. The draft report
identifies the "Website is easy to access and navigate, it has
developed, has discussion fora and allows e-payments; service staff
now have ownership of service pages."
Sitemorse testing
We currently use the
Sitemorse testing service to
ensure our website is error free, reliable, and that it conforms to
the latest government standards. Sitemorse also carries out tests
every month on all 468 councils websites in the UK. (Allerdale's
website has been ranked 15th out of 468).
Quotes about our Website
"Firstly can I congratulate the council on a
fantastic website! I have found it extremely useful, helpful and
very easy to navigate."
"Congratulations on your web-site. I am very
impressed."
"Congratulations on your election coverage on
the website - it was superb! I was glued to it when I got home from
Wigton until the Keswick result went on."
"As I stated this morning your website is
excellent! As part of my job I research all forms of communication
used by local authorities and therefore have checked out all
Cumbria Council websites. Without a doubt Allerdale has the best
'user friendly' site. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to
understand how to access information required from all services the
Council offers. What a pleasure!"
"I found your site when looking for info about
UK counties/cities. Very nice and informative. I have added a link
on my site to it, so everybody can enjoy it."
"I found your Council web site today, which
includes planning application lists each with its own site location
plan (excellent), plus Planning Committee Agendas and Minutes. Very
impressed with amount of info and ease of use. Best of the
'Planning' web sites in Cumbria. Please pass on this congrats to
whoever created it."
"The web site is extremely well-designed and
other Local Authorities should follow your example. Well
done!"
"Hi! Just had a look at your site - I like
it!"
"Your website is nice."
"Very easy to find your way around, links
excellent, most of info clear."
"Nice site, well done. It's crisp, clean and
efficient. Useful content too."
"Nice to see Allerdale have joined the
technological age."
"Good site, easy to get round. Of great help
if, like me, you need info, are very busy, and live hundreds of
miles away."
"The site looks great."
"....most of the website is great, and loads at
a sensible speed even over our pathetic connection."
"Having just had a 'play' with the site, I'm
really impressed! Well done."
"Probably the best local authority site I have
seen on the web."
"The site looks great and very
comprehensive."
"Browsed ABC website which is about the best
local authority website I have seen!"
"Had a good tour round - well done! All links
are clear and snappy - very pleased with the result."
"Excellent and long overdue. Now at least we
can't say we don't know what is going on."
"Brilliant start - good stuff!"
"Just a brief note of thanks for producing the
excellent resource in the Broughton Moor pages of your web site and
for sending the development guide."
"I would like to congratulate you on the new
Allerdale website. This has been my first visit today and I found
the whole site very easy to navigate and very well put together and
displayed, which made my visit even more enjoyable. The content in
general is excellent and the information within the site was easy
to access and understand. Congratulations again and for the first
time in my life I can now appreciate the work involved by your
dedicated staff at Allerdale Borough Council."
"I came to the website looking for planning
advice, and found it easily. The planning section is well laid out
with no broken links. well done."
Feedback about our eForms
"The form was easy to follow and having limited characters
focused my mind!. The ability to save the form and return to it is
excellent as is the upload facility for a job description. Very
positive experience
"This is definitely the way forward for business
communications. It saves paper, time and postage. Using
the form was easy and it was well laid out."
About the Job Application Form:" I found
it difficult to explain how I met the criteria on the person
specification using the 2000 character limitation in the additional
information and relevant experience boxes, and this was on a person
spec with only 15 points - what about the one with 29 points that
I'm interested in applying for!!! I would suggest that increasing
this limit or ensuring person specifications are kept more succinct
would make the process less frustrating. Overall it was simple and
quick though."
To combat the users problem, we have increased the character
limitation up to 5000 for all of the text areas
on the Job Application Form and added a
'Character Count' facility to the large text areas of all our
forms.
"The form was easy to follow and very handy as the postmen are
on strike"
"The forms are well laid out and intuitive to use. This is an
excellent way of imparting information."
About the Missed Bin Form:"Our big green bin is
missing. There was no area to type a short message to
explain."
We have since added a 'Further Information' box on the Missed Bin
form to allow users to provide short explanations where
appropriate
"The form was very good, the only criticism was it was time
consuming to read the whole form to make sure that the right things
were put in the right boxes."
Allerdale Borough Council
