8. Metrics for January 2010 30,252 (14.037 ) Find your local 16-19 prospectus 36,204 (28,257) Apply for a blue badge parking permit 40,529 (24,150) Apply to register on the electoral roll 45,673 Find out about road closures and diversions 52,623 (28,448 ) Pay your council tax 87,723 (42,809 ) Find out more about council tax 118,010 (41,371 ) Check your eligibility for council tax benefit 156,252 Get local information on services disrupted by severe weather 204,603 Find out about emergency school closures 260,330(108,865 ) Find out school term dates Requests (previous month) Service Name Top Ten SAM services (Citizen-facing)
9. Metrics for May 2010 23,929 Apply for a copy birth certificate 25,552 (25,376) Apply for a blue badge parking permit 30,141 (34,901) Find out about the electoral register 31,332 (36,111) Check your eligibility for council tax benefit 44,374 (86,224) Apply to register on the electoral roll 56,679 (52,524) Pay your council tax 60,890 (63,508) Find out more about council tax 66,636 Find out about election results 94,866 ( 98,195 ) Check your eligibility for housing benefit 156,638 (182,842) Find out school term dates Requests (previous month) Service Name Top Ten SAM services (Citizen-facing)
Severe weather spread across most of the country just before Christmas and Local authorities provided a journey from Directgov to their local page on weather using SAM (Local Directgov application). Most of interest was at a local level such as bin collections, school closures, etc. SAM contains links for all English Local authorities to over 240 services where appropriate.
1 of 16 areas on the Directgov website – show screenshot on next page Home and community franchise – generally local government information, covers policy areas handled by communities and local government and other departments where relevant – this includes housing (buying a home, renting, council housing), things like how to report a faulty street light, council tax information and how to pay it (online or otherwise) A strong focus not on basic informational pieces, but information that really matters to citizens – eg applying for council housing, finding your tax band and paying your council tax, reporting abandoned cars and furniture, finding out about bin collections (direct links into the pages on their local government website with their specific procedures/how the citizen can report something), mortgage help (which crossed MOJ and CLG and info in the Money, Tax and Benefits section) Rigorous style guidelines and quality checks based on user testing and research to make sure that content is easy to read and understand – we became an accredited franchise in May this year. This meant that we had at least 2 accredited editors (passed an accreditation process that takes anywhere from 2 months to a year depending on progress and timing). This allows us to publish directly to the Directgov website, removing a step in the process for us of having everything checked through the central team and reduces the burden on the Quality Monitoring team within Directgov. Emphasis on closing many government and non-depart1,001 websites had closed as of 31 March 2010