One of the problems of the District Council’s Cabinet system is that it assumes that the cabinet member is familiar with every aspect of their portfolio.
In the old days , when we had a committee system, you could pool the knowledge of different councillors. Suppose you were the chairman of the Leisure Services Committee but never used the Great Wakering Sports Centre. Well, that didn’t matter very much because other councillors on the committee might know it very well.
We mention this because a report has just been prepared on the future strategy of the district council’s website. It’s approved by the portfolio holder, Cllr Mavis Webster, and will come into effect in the next few days unless three councillors call it in. The odd situation here is that Mavis wouldn’t claim to be an expert on websites.
So we are having an extra careful look at the strategy. You can download it here (705K) and have a look yourself.
Here’s a few bits from the document:
The plans for next year are to:
? Develop ?Your Neighbourhood? system and integrate into our website
? Develop task orientated content.
? Organise and facilitate website surgeries and workshops with libraries.
? Implement new ways to deliver content and other communications, through the use of multimedia and syndicated systems.
? Design and develop a youth website/section.
? Implement web based consultation system.
? Investigate authentication systems.
? Expand use of online forms to collect data and information from customer requests in a standardised format.
If you have any comments on this, please let us know as soon as possible.