Elected Member Briefing - Website refresh

About this briefing note

Report by: Lisa Potter, Communications and Performance Manager

Date: 11 August 2023

Subject: Website refresh and software upgrade

Details

Purpose

To advise elected members that following a software upgrade there may be some disruptions to the availability of the main Council website on Monday 14 August, and that following this upgrade there will be a slight refresh of the website design.  

Briefing Information 

Our existing contract for the content management system behind our main Council website came to an end last year. After a tendering process the new contract was awarded to our existing provider, GOSS. 

As part of the new contract we are being upgraded to their latest website management system software. Over time this will give us access to new templates for how individual pages/sections are presented, which we can use where they will be of benefit to the customer experience. 

The move to the new version of the content management software will take place on Monday 14 August 2023. 

As we are remaining with the same provider the upgrade process will be relatively straightforward. This means that there will be minimal disruption and impact on users of our website. We will however be adding a banner message to the website on Monday and posting on social media to advise that if people do experience problems accessing the website while the upgrade takes place then they should wait a few minutes before trying to access the page again and refresh their browser. 

From a public perspective, visitors to individual web pages which are relevant to them will in all likelihood not notice any immediate difference as a result of the upgrade. This is because the majority of visitors to our website go directly to a specific page from internet search engine results, a social media post or an email referral rather than via the website homepage. 

The most noticeable change which will be visible from Monday is a refresh of the design of the website. This has been simplified to remove the large banner image which takes up a lot of screen space on the current website and introduces a carousel function at the top of the homepage to make it easier to highlight key and current information. 

All existing web page links on leaflets, posters and letters, and all integrations with additional platforms such as MyPKC, the planning portal and committee meeting agendas and papers, will remain active and unaffected by this upgrade.