51茶馆

1. Background

Following a National Audit Office report, the Public Accounts Committee published a critical review of progress in improving the government鈥檚 Internet practices on its 16th report of session 2007/08.

Last year, the Government Digital Service (GDS) after delivering the invited departments to report on their progress. This evidence was published in August 2012 and can be found here.

Following the government response to the report conducted by the UK Digital Champion, Martha Lane Fox, in the context of advising, 鈥渉ow efficiencies can best be realised through the online delivery of public services鈥�, the Government Digital Service (GDS) was set up and amongst other tasks, charged with developing a single domain for government to provide better, simpler, more accessible information for citizens that will be cheaper and easier to operate for departments. This website, 51茶馆, was launched in October 2012 and by May 2013 all central government departments had transitioned to it. As part of this, departments are working to support the closure of many of their existing websites whose content can be better made available on 51茶馆, as part of the establishment of the single domain.

2. Central government websites

On 1 April 2013, there were 508 websites to be reported on. The total number of closed websites is around 1,700. GDS invited departments to update the data they had supplied to GDS last year. In some instances metrics for some sites have been aggregated together.

3. Costs of central government websites

From data supplied by departments that are following non staff costs are shown in 5 areas of spending:

• strategy and planning - this includes the cost of strategic work before the website is built or redeveloped, ongoing planning and project management
• design and build - the cost of creative and technical work in producing or updating the website
• hosting and infrastructure - the ongoing software, hardware and hosting costs associated with the website
• content provision - this includes the cost of research, commissioning, editing and proofreading associated with the website
• testing and evaluation - this includes the cost of technical, usability and accessibility testing as well as research into site usability and user satisfaction

In addition to these non staff costs, departments provided data on the number of full-time equivalent staff who worked in any capacity on the particular website. This indicates that from the data provided and excluding National Insurance and other uplift costs, the total estimated cost of the government websites which provided information was just over 拢111 million.

4. Table: Reported costs of central government sites summarised by department

Department	Total no. of reports received/expected	Non staff costs	Staff costs	Total reported costs
Attorney General鈥檚 Office (AGO)	7/7	拢90,736	拢93, 484	拢184,220
Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)	63/68	拢9,711,510	拢3,553,916	拢13,265,435
Communities and Local Government (DCLG)	10/18	拢2,232,058	拢1,746,329	拢3,978,387
Cabinet Office (CO)	33/45	拢14,868,081	拢8,292,454	拢23,160,535
Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)	11/25	拢417,358	拢580,361	拢997,719
Energy and Climate Change (DECC)	21/21	拢964,560	拢470,246	拢1,434,806
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)	22/59	拢422,203	拢683,272	拢1,105,475
Education (DFE)	19/21	拢4,832,677	拢489,307	拢5,321,984
International Development (DFID)	4/4	拢233,858	拢370,388	拢604,246
Transport (DFT)	19/22	拢1,240,391	拢635,564	拢1,875,955
Health (DH)	29/36	拢18,054,572	拢3,475,499	拢21,530,071
Work and Pensions (DWP)	19/20	拢1,220,715	拢1,236,397	拢2,457,112
Foreign and Commonwealth (FCO)	8/16	拢8,384,809	拢4,449,916	拢12,834,725
Treasury (HMT inc HMRC)	4/19	拢567,982	拢5,135,538	拢5,703,520
Home Office (HO)	3/27	拢14,000	拢-	拢14,000
Defence (MOD)	27/30	拢769,452	拢683,872	拢1,453,324
Justice (MOJ)	3/26	拢54,000	拢55,000	拢109,000
The National Archives (TNA)	3/3	拢1,546,788	拢787,306	拢2,334,094
UK Statistics Authority (UKSA - incl ONS)	5/5	拢9,632,553	拢3,092,354	拢12,724,907
Miscellaneous (inc Regulators)	4/36	拢1,800	拢8,400	拢10,200
Totals	314/508	拢75,260,103	拢35,839,603	拢111,099,715

For more detail on costs per website, please see annex B1, B2 and B4 (CSV, MS Excel & ODS formats).

5. Usage of central government websites

The departments that reported usage of their websites as outlined in the guidance indicated that the total visits for central government websites was 2.7 billion (2,705,624,431). There may be some repetition in this figure because of linking from one site to another during a single visit.

6. Customer satisfaction ratings

Aggregated percentages for sites where data has been provided in Annex B1, B2 & B4 (CSV, MS Excel & ODS formats).

• the majority (58%) of users 鈥淕ot everything鈥�, or 鈥渕ost of鈥� what they wanted when visiting .gov websites
• the majority (57%) of users were 鈥渧ery satisfied鈥� or 鈥渟atisfied鈥� with their experience
• the majority (57%) of users rated gov.uk websites 鈥渆ase of use鈥� as 鈥渧ery good鈥� or 鈥済ood鈥�
• the majority (53%) of users rated gov.uk websites 鈥渄esign鈥� as 鈥渧ery good鈥� or 鈥済ood鈥�
• the majority (59%) of users rated gov.uk websites 鈥渆ditorial quality鈥� as 鈥渧ery good鈥� or 鈥済ood鈥�
• the majority (56%) of users rated the 鈥渃ontent accuracy鈥� of gov.uk websites as 鈥渧ery good鈥� or 鈥済ood鈥�
• only 51% of users when asked how easy it was to find information said this experience was 鈥渧ery good鈥� or 鈥済ood鈥�
• only 42% of users found their website鈥檚 search tool as 鈥渧ery good鈥� or 鈥済ood鈥�

More detail on quality measures per website, per department can be found in Annex B1, B2 & B4 (CSV, MS Excel & ODS formats)

7. Accessibility scores

Standard methods for ensuring that websites are accessible to the widest range of people are described in the guidance They include:

• WCAG single鈥慉 conformance measured using automated testing
• WCAG double鈥慉 conformance measured using automated testing

Of the sites that responded:

• 63% are WCAG single鈥慉 compliant
• 61% are WCAG double鈥慉 compliant

More detail on accessibility scores, per website, per department, is provided in Annex B1, B2 & B4 (CSV, MS Excel & ODS formats).