Local government websites perform badly

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A study has shown that most local government websites perform badly when compared to those in other sectors, with 72% failing to meet industry 'uptime' targets.

The study was conducted in July and August this year and the researchers say that if was to continue for a 12-month period, there would be 100% failure.

MyWebAlert sponsored the study by Broadband Testing which looked at how many websites meet the industry standard annual service level agreement target of 99.999% uptime.

The poorest performers were Flintshire County Council, Greenwich Council, Mid Beds District Council and the City of Westminster. Only 11 councils recorded downtime of less than one hour over the course of the study.

Partly to blame, says the study, is the fact that private and public sector organisations often outsource website hosting to third parties without assuming responsibility for monitoring quality of service. MyWebAlert said: "This study clearly illustrates that this is dangerous practice.”