With higher expectations from local residents in the services North Lanarkshire council provides and the possibility that the winter would bring road chaos, the Council undertook their most thorough preparation for information and service delivery via their website.
The planners at the council identified the main site users and what information they would need during a harsh winter. They also knew that by providing the information online they could reduce telephone calls to the contact centre and the financial overhead this brings.
Information needs identified for target visitors:
Website visitors | Information need |
School children, teachers and parents | School closures |
Commuters and businesses | Road situation and gritting action |
Social services and homecare | Service status |
Residents | Variety of information specific to their needs |
Media | Variety of information |
And their planning was not wasted. Just as the perfect storm hit the UK and brought central Scotland to a halt on Monday 6th December 2010, North Lanarkshire Council's website stood strong against an epic onslaught with more than 111,000 visitors looking for information on schools, roads and a range of council services. As the website is hosted by GOSS, immediately scaled bandwidth to cope with demand and, over the next four weeks, www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk received more than 1.1 million visits.
Before the first snow fell, the council had set up its winter services landing page using a gallery template.
This offered single page access to a full range of information and updated service reports, many of which were supplemented by a Twitter feed (twitter.com/nlcwinter). The Twitter page achieved more than 3500 followers, the 4th largest following for any council, and even inspired its own parody profile as well as developing a cult following among school children looking for the first signs of a day off.
The winter schools daily update page attained the largest amount of traffic; receiving more than a million visits and offering real time information on school closures and event cancellations.
The Gritting update also proved an important resource for residents and businesses. The content was refreshed at least twice daily; combining weather reports with the roads service's response. The site also carried GIS maps showing primary and secondary gritting routes and locations of grit bins.
Disruptions to social services and homecare during the freeze were also Tweeted and posted twice daily so that people dependent on help knew exactly what was going on.
All this was not only of use to residents but helped the organisation. The Council's contact centre and schools were able to focus on delivering services to those who need them, rather than on answering more general enquiries. It also helped the Council respond to real information demands by monitoring Google Analytics and changing content accordingly.
The North Lanarkshire website was reviewed independently in the SOCITM Better Connected 2011 report. The winter service provision provided by the North Lanarkshire was in the top 6% of UK local authorities and sighted as an example of best practice. The website reviewer even commented that the winter service page was "brilliant".
Sue Roberts, Website Development Project Owner, North Lanarkshire Council is delighted with the site's performance.
"The website was the hub of all our winter communications. It supported our residents, fed information to other media and created space for our other communications channels to concentrate on delivering services. We were able to handle, effectively, one million additional information requests through the website.
"We've had this site for a year and a half now and are still delighted that GOSS iCM offers us scope for continuous development and improvement."
Roberts was also pleased with North Lanarkshire Council's use of Twitter.
"The Twitter feed definitely added value to our communications; offering another fast delivery channel during emergency weather conditions."
Rob McCarthy, CEO, GOSS adds;
"North Lanarkshire are making good use of their website by ensuring information is provided in a simple and clear way, so that local people can find the information they want rather than having to use the contact centres. This creates a huge efficiency saving as it is up to 85% cheaper to service an information request online rather than over the phone."
