Coalition promises to kill three-quarters of its websites
Not actually sure how many we've got though
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The coalition government has promised to get rid of 75 per cent of its websites - although it admits that it is not actually sure how many websites it is running.
Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, told Parliament there was no centrally held data on how many government and "non-departmental public bodies" websites there really are.
Maude said that since 11 May, the government had already found another 81 sites - giving a total of 742 websites which are either run directly by the government or run by charities, museums or other bodies with government involvement.
Maude promised an announcement alongside the spending review to cut 75 per cent of these.
The minister was also asked how much was spent on government websites and how many visitors the sites received.
In response, the boss of the Central Office of Information pointed to a report on government-provided websites over 2009 and 2010. This found that 1,001 sites had already been closed.
COMMENTS
Welcome to kneejerk policy
I despair. What happened to finding out what they have and doing a needs analysis before commenting on how many should go? The right figure might be all bar one.
Costs
Surely if the website is designed, up and running then any future running costs should be relatively small . If the website is well used AND it provides a valuable service, I sincerely hope the value of any site is fully understood and costed.
By all means rationalise their locations and domain names, but closing for closing sake is not joined up thinking. Web services can dramatical reduces costs. (snail mail vs. email)
What do they mean ?
Well, what do they mean by website ? Separate infrastructure and hosting ? different URL ? what ? by all means consolidate the hosting to save money, that would be the first step , but don't drop information until you know its not being used, Surely that's sensible .
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