Coalition to cull Government websites

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All Government websites are set to be reviewed – and hundreds scrapped – to save millions in taxpayers' money, according to the Cabinet Office.

A new report from the Central Office of Information (COI) found development and running of just 46 sites had cost the Government £94 million in 2009 – 2010, plus £32 million in staffing costs.

As a result the coalition Government is planning on reviewing each site – looking at cost, usage and resources – with the intention of scrapping 75 per cent of them.

“The days of ‘vanity’ sites are over,” said Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office.

“It is not good enough to have websites which do not deliver the high quality services which people expect and deserve. That is why we will take tough action to get rid of those which are not up to the job and do not offer good value for money and introduce strict guidelines for those that remain.”

Maude will work alongside Digital Champion Martha Lane Fox and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander to form the review, which is due to be report to the Government before the spending review in September.

Until then no new websites will be allowed to be built, unless they pass a “stringent exceptions process for special cases” and get the thumbs up afterwards by the newly formed Efficiency Board – chaired by Maude and Alexander.

The Labour government was the first to set up a review of the cost of websites back in 2006. However, despite identifying 794 sites in March 2010 – and promising the closure of 422 – the Government now claims the total number of sites has actually risen, to 820.

The COI report looked at the relative costs of different official sites. The most expensive website is uktradeinvest.gov.uk, which cost £11.78 per visit, and the second priciest as businesslink.gov.uk, which cost £2.15 per visit.

Although it was happy to unveil the prices of the websites, the Cabinet Office would not reveal the price tag of the review itself.

A spokesperson from the department told IT PRO: “The cost will be reported in the spending review in September… but we have got no costs we can give you at the moment.”

Along with the closures, Maude has pledged to cut the costs of the remaining websites by 50 per cent, and to move onto shared infrastructure.

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