Leeds council to spend £1.8 million on new website

Leeds councillors have approved plans to spend £1.8 million to replace the authority's ageing website and employees' intranet service.

Members of the council's executive board yesterday agreed to a three-year programme of improvements which will see its main website - www.leeds.gov.uk - improved, and the consolidation of the council's 75 different websites.

The improvements, which come on the back of Leeds being ranked last out of 36 metropolitan council websites in the country, will include the introduction of a new back-end publishing system and new intranet system for council workers.

75 different websites

A report considered by councillors said that the 75 different websites - for different council functions, departments and agencies - lead to 'confusing messages for residents and made information harder to find' and was costly to maintain. It said the different sites were a result of 'unreliable technology'.

Councillors were told that people fail to find the information they require 35% of the time - and said the authority needed a 'effective transactional website if it is to deliver significant savings from moving customers away from more expensive delivery channels'.

But Liberal Democrat leader Stewart Golton said that rather than just doing things in-house and an existing partnership with Microsoft, the council should tap into the 'considerable innovative web talent' in Leeds as opposed to doing things cheaply and ending up with a 'Wallace and Gromit' invention.

And Conservative leader Andrew Carter said he was concerned that the council's track record on IT issues 'hasn't been all that great' and pointed to a number of IT problems the council had faced recently.

Members agreed to Carter's suggestion that the executive board receives a detailed update report as each stage of the work progresses.

Council leader Keith Wakefield added:

"If we're going to achieve savings over four years we need to make it easier for citizens to access services online as it's a much more cost-effective way for us to do things."

The report said that funding would be provided from money already set aside for IT improvements and that much of the work would be done in-house. It also said the current publishing system was developed in-house more than 10 years ago, with an expected lifespan of three years. It added:

"The council cannot publish information in real time which means we cannot react to emergencies or immediate changes to service information. Additionally the website is completely unavailable for 20 minutes each day to enable site content to be updated.

"Failure to tackle the issues may damage the council's reputation."

Leeds HMO latest

Tighter restrictions on the number of houses in multiple occupancy (HMO) in student areas of Leeds moved a step closer to reality.

Members gave the go-ahead for the council to introduce an 'article 4' direction, which would mean that landlord would have to get planning permission before turning a property into student flats.

The direction would cover parts or the whole of wards including Armley, Beeston and Holbeck, Bramley and Stanningley, Burmantofts and Richmond Hill, Chapel Allerton, City and Hunslet, Gipton and Harehills, Headingley, Hyde Park and Woodhosue, Kirkstall, Moortown and Weetwood.

It follows the recent relaxing of laws surrounding HMOs by government. The council plans to bring in new planning policies to manage the numbers of HMOs, and there will be a public consultation on those policies later this year.

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