Hillingdon Council website recognised at LG Comms awards

And online transactions increase by 166%

The London Borough of Hillingdon has received a prestigious award at the LG Communications Reputation Award ceremony in the Digital Media category. The Bronze award recognises the use of best practice to deliver services and information online, and to engage with local residents to help shape these services. Hillingdon's website is built and maintained using a Web Content Management system from GOSS Interactive.

When delivering services online, Hillingdon's strategy has been focused on local residents. By putting the customer at the centre of service delivery, Hillingdon has been able to provide wider access to council services and expand and improve self-service facilities. This also reaffirms the council's commitment to provide more efficient means of contact for residents to reinvigorating its transformation programme.

By implementing GOSS iCM (intelligent Content Management), the council's self-service website provides access to a range of transactions and service information at the citizen's convenience. GOSS iCM comes with a comprehensive set of tools to create engagement with end users. Hillingdon's digital media team has implemented a variety of services online, including an A-Z directory with Web 2.0 functionality, community discussion forums, interactive digital TV and mobile web channels, news alerts (by email and SMS), and social media, such as Facebook. This enables the local community to have a choice in how it receives local service information or communicates with the council.

Hillingdon Council was among the very first UK local authorities to offer social network communication to its local community, starting with YouTube in late 2007 and now including Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. With this expansive online presence, the council can communicate news directly to a wider audience and target harder to reach groups, such as the young community. The community also has the ability to feed back to the authority through these new channels.

Hillingdon is now able to measure its online success with ease. Visitor numbers to the council's website show a consistent increase year on year; 67,095 visitors in April 2008 increasing to 82,973 in March 2009, with an additional 15,878 unique monthly visitors since the same time last year. Online transactions have increased by 166 per cent as citizen awareness of access to services via the website and social media take-up has grown significantly: Twitter - Followers: 240+, Facebook: 70+ fans, YouTube Video views: 170+, YouTube Subscribers: 10+ and YouTube Channel views: 3,580+. And as an example of access to information, the percentage of residents who prefer to find out about Council finances via the website increased from five per cent in 2008 to 22 per cent in 2009(Hillingdon residents' survey, 2009).

Stephen Cross, E-Communications Manager, London Borough of Hillingdon, comments, "Putting the customer at the centre of council services delivered online is already paying off, visitor numbers are up, online transactions have risen 166 per cent and services are performed with greater efficiency. This award recognises the hard work and dedication from the Hillingdon Council team in partnership with GOSS."

Edward Welsh, Programme Director, Media and Campaign, LGA says, "The awards reflect the core actions of the LGA's Reputation Campaign and aspiration of LGcomms to enhance the standing of the sector. The winning entries provide first rate examples of how to build reputations, showing the importance of a strategic approach, clear objectives and creativity."[1]

Rob McCarthy, Managing Director, GOSS Interactive, adds, "Hillingdon has been a long-term and committed client with an excellent strategy for developing website engagement, a process that makes the best use of GOSS iCM. This strategy, embracing Web 2.0 ideas and best practice, has resulted in the council being acknowledged by LGcomms."