From time to time government and councils' spending on council websites receives media attention. Cambridgeshire County Council is committed to the internet as a medium for communications with the public.
It is now the most heavily used point of contact between councils and the public, and can offer considerable public savings: £0.39 per transaction, as opposed to £3.21 by telephone or £8.23 face-to-face (Better Connected 2010).
This section gives details of website redesign costs and contracts awarded to external suppliers.
Website redesign costs
The Cambridgeshire County Council website has undertaken four re-designs in the last ten years
- September 2000
- October 2002
- November 2004
- March 2010
Development and maintenance costs since 2004
| Year |
Cost |
| 2004 - 2005 |
£124,908 |
| 2005 - 2006 |
£40,504 |
| 2006 - 2007 |
£41,119 |
| 2007 - 2008 |
£40,637 |
| 2008 - 2009 |
£90,677 |
| 2009 - 2010 |
£117,630 |
| 2010 - 2011 |
£65,036 |
Further information about website redesign costs
- Development, maintenance, support and hosting (both hardware and applications) is carried out in-house, which is reflected in the changes, updates and support costs.
- The CMS and search engine licence cost also covers the delivery of the Council intranet site.
- Design (including design, CSS, templates, images and style guide) was commissioned to an external local design agency in 2004 and a contractor in 2009.
- Development in 2008 and 2009 included improving website accessibility, integrating online forms and payments, implementation of http://my.cambridgeshire.gov.uk, implementing new CMS templates and improvements to the CMS.
- Development in 2010 included a redesign of the website look and feel and changes to website page templates to improve user experience and accessibility.
A breakdown of website redesign costs is provided in the spreadsheet document below.
This data is freely re-usable under the Open Government Licence.