For a number of years, the strong message coming from the Better Connected studies has been that getting the website right is fundamental to achieving major savings for the public sector.

We have the skills and the tools to help you achieve a website that delivers for your council - that is a website that gives real value in terms of the services it delivers to your customers and the savings it makes for the council. We cover all that is needed, summarised below:

The website is there to earn its keep - if you are going to spend an average of £50-£100k a year on keeping the website up to scratch (and if you're spending more, look very carefully at the costs), you need to be assured that you are achieving at least 5-10 times this in direct benefits and savings - in other words, the website should be saving you at least £1 million a year.

For a step by step guide, click on the diagram to see more detail

The cost of the desktop, when multiplied by the number of devices in use in a council, is a very significant expense. The variability shown from the Socitm Benchmarking data on desktop costs shows the extent of the savings that are possible - and these are only touching the surcface. Driving down the cost to 50% of its current value is certainly not out of the question.

To be clear about what the costs of the desktop consist of, the costs are made up of:

The dramatic growth of mobile working in both public and private sectors reflects the maturing of the technologies that make it possible. Social, legislative and environmental changes, such as the growth in flexible working patterns, pressures on business and government to deliver better services more efficiently, and the increasing use of mobile technologies in private life, also encourage its adoption. The potential for substantial savings on office costs is especially attractive. 

The Lean approach is simple in concept – it is about removing waste from established processes in order to make them efficient and effective. Experience shows, however, that the principle can be difficult to implement in a local government context.

Tax receipts of all kinds have fallen dramatically, benefits claims are climbing, and the elected members want to keep the council tax down. The outlook for local government budgets looks very grim, but demand for services just keeps on growing. Lean thinking provides an excellent answer: it is a comprehensive approach that will deliver savings for years to come. However, it is not a trivial undertaking.