East Renfrewshire Council has selected GOSS Interactive to provide its fully hosted website and intranet, both managed with GOSS iCM (intelligent Content Management).
This will enable East Renfrewshire Council to deliver more services via its website than are available on the existing site; such as job and permit applications, revenue collection and problem reporting. This reduces avoidable contact and can improve online take-up, which in turn can make significant cost savings for the council, as service delivery via the web channel is 87 per cent more cost-effective than contact centres.
The web team at East Renfrewshire will be able to utilise existing .NET programming skills to deploy additional council services for both sites, due to the flexibility of GOSS iCM.
John Paul McKay, Project Manager (IT Systems), at East Renfrewshire Council, comments, "We wanted to move to a new platform to future-proof ourselves and take advantage of the features, flexibility and cost savings offered by a fully developed product such as GOSS iCM. The underlying GOSS architecture lends itself well to our internal use of the .NET development framework and will allow us to use existing skills to develop and deploy multiple services and information to our website and intranet.
"We also see advantages in having one organisation providing an end-to-end solution from hosting through to software support and product enhancements. We are dealing with the product owner and not a third party so the level of product knowledge and commitment to ongoing development and improvement is exemplary. GOSS understands the public sector and the fact that GOSS iCM is built upon a technology platform that matches our IT strategy is important."
The Internet site will initially be a migration of existing functionality and content into the GOSS environment to provide a base for further planned developments. Following on from this the website will also be re-designed. The intranet will be re-designed using the GOSS iCM templates to provide comprehensive out-of-the-box functionality and where appropriate these templates will be tailored to meet East Renfrewshire Council's specific requirements.
Further improvements will also be made to internal communication and information provision through improved workflow processes and ensuring that content is regularly reviewed and updated where appropriate.
Rob McCarthy, Managing Director, GOSS Interactive, adds: "Our understanding of the market place has meant that we are able to deliver cost efficient eGovernment tools and functionality for East Renfrewshire Council. In addition East Renfrewshire Council is able to make the most of their in-house technical skills, provide a full range of services via their website and continue to develop functionality with their .NET programmers."
