South Tyneside Council’s website ranked bottom of North East league
Nationally South Tyneside was 343rd from the 357 surveyed.
A survey has ranked South Tyneside Council’s website bottom in the North East.
The survey, carried out by digital consultants Harrison Mann, gave the site an overall score of 64.5 out of 100 rating it as “needs work”. It scored 29 out of a 100 for speed making it “poor”.
However, it scored a perfect 100 for accessibility where it is rated as “good”.
It is placed it 10th from the 10 websites of North East local authorities tested, although two, Gateshead and Stockton-on-Tees, were among 25 councils not in the survey as their websites “blocked Google’s testing tool”.
Nationally South Tyneside was 343rd from the 357 surveyed. Sunderland finished ninth in the region. Hartlepool was top.
Richard Barker, digital marketing consultant at Harrison Mann, said: “Council websites get a hard time, but the best of them are as good as anything in the private sector. What stands out is that the software matters less than the care that goes into it.”
He added: “Council websites are where people pay council tax, report a missed bin or ask for help, and for a lot of residents that happens on an older phone with a weak signal or a small data allowance.
“When a homepage is slow or doesn’t work with a screen reader, the people who rely on the council most are the ones who get stuck, and they end up on the phone or at the front desk instead.
“The good news is that most of the fixes are small. Resize photos before they go on the website, cut the scripts and widgets nobody uses, and test pages with a keyboard and a screen reader, not just an automated checker.
“The councils at the top of this table aren’t spending more than anyone else; they are looking after their websites properly.”
Council looking to see ‘where further improvements can be made’
A spokesperson for South Tyneside Council said: “We take the accessibility and performance of our website seriously and continually monitor and improve the experience for residents.
“We’re pleased the Council website achieved the highest possible accessibility score of 100, placing South Tyneside among the 30% of North East councils achieving a perfect accessibility score in the research.
“The research highlights website speed on mobile devices as the area affecting our overall score, rather than accessibility. We are reviewing the findings to understand where further improvements can be made.”