12 March 2008

Viewing planning and licensing applications, finding out about housing, and booking tickets for local entertainment are just some of the online services offered to the public on Guildford Borough Council’s website, which has just been officially rated as ‘excellent’ for its content in a national, independent assessment.

Lead Councillor for Communications, Cllr Vas Kapsalis, comments: “We are committed to providing an efficient and informative online service for residents, and we have been working hard to develop our website and make it easy to use for everyone. We are a large and complex organisation with many priorities providing hundreds of services to a wide range of different audiences, so it’s important we get it right”.

The analysis of over 550 local authority websites, by independent professional body the Society of IT Management (SOCITM), highlights the improvements and developments to the council’s website and showcases Guildford as a good example of providing information on housing.

Adds Cllr Kapsalis: “This result demonstrates our improved service for residents and the work behind the scenes to maintain and develop our online content. However, we are not stopping here and we are already working to deliver more services online”.

Latest additions to the council's website include:

• Online booking for the Electric Theatre. This includes tickets for Guildford Philharmonic and other organisations the Electric Theatre provides box office services for. Visit www.electrictheatre.co.uk.

• Online searchable database for the public register of all current premises licences and club premises certificates issued under the Licensing Act 2003. The public can search for individual premises, view applications for licences and make a representation online. Visit www.guildford.gov.uk/licensingregisters.

Guildford's SOCITM web assessment included the following highlights:

• The award of 'transactional' status for the website as a whole - an improvement on last year's 'standard' rating
• Achieving the 'improved from 2007' criteria
• Coming top out of the shire districts for the 'best performers in January 2008' for take-up of online services by local residents
• Being recognised as an example of good practice for ‘obtaining housing information’.
  In addition:
• The rating of 'excellent content' for the 'useful content' element of the review was achieved by only 47 of the 552 websites that were examined
• Only four councils achieved ‘excellent’ status (the top mark); 165 gained ‘transactional’ status.

The assessment also identified some areas for further development which include improving the ease of finding and using information on the website (usability) and accessibility.

For a full list of Guildford Borough Council's online services visit www.guildford.gov.uk/doitonline.