In promoting the results, we focussed on one key indicator – whether people were able to find and do what they wanted to on their council’s website. A quarter of all councils use the Website take up service and in the month reported, September 2009, 25 thousand individuals completed our online survey. Their responses showed that around 21% of their web enquiries failed completely and another 21% failed partially.

Now that the web is by far the biggest access channel to council services (if you doubt it, there is lots of evidence from research) web failures are setting up massive volumes of avoidable contact for councils’ other, more expensive access channels. According to our data, a typical unitary for example, could be receiving as many as 650 additional enquiries a day because the website is not delivering the information or services sought.

High quality web provision and greater shift to the web must be a vital part of councils’ strategies if they are to maintain service levels in a future of budget cuts. Understanding where websites are failing, and how to improve them has never been more important.