Parole Board For England And Wales
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Parole board wins website of the year award
The recently re-designed Parole Board website, which was launched in January 2008, has won the website or microsite of the year category in the prestigious Chartered Institute of Public Relations Excellence Awards for 2008. The award was announced on Monday (15 September) at the CIPR Excellence Awards Dinner held at the London Hilton Hotel on Park Lane.
The CIPR team of judges said: "This is a very clearly designed site that succeeds in delivering expert advice for victims of crime, offenders and industry professionals. The language is clear and the signposting on the site is simple and easy to follow. Difficult issues are handled sensitively and the site is extremely informative, using a question and answer format to deliver its messages in a style that is open and welcoming.
"The site is a tribute to open communications and has received widespread praise from the industry as well as from its victim and offender audiences. There is much to commend this site - its meets all its objectives, it delivers no-nonsense information and advice, and it is easy to use and follow."
The website was completely re-designed earlier this year, with the help of web design agency ECRU, to be made more accessible to those with sight or reading difficulties and is now targeted directly at the main Parole Board audiences, which include victims of crime, prisoners and criminal justice practitioners.
The site features a new section aimed at victims of crime and their families, including advice on how to make a victim impact statement for consideration by the Parole Board and how to attend a Parole Board hearing to present that statement in person.
The site also features a re-designed section aimed at prisoners and their families including, for the first time, advice for juvenile offenders and a quick guide to parole for prisoners with reading or learning difficulties.
The site includes multimedia features, with a podcast by Parole Board members talking about their work, a video clip from the BBC2 documentary series about the Parole Board 'Lock them up or let them out', and an interactive case simulator from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.
In its first six months after relaunch the website has increased the average monthly number of page views by 101%, with over 275,000 in total from January to August 2008 and 115,000 visits during the same period.
Parole Board Head of Communications Tim Morris said: "Our aim in re-designing the website was to make it more accessible and user friendly for our diverse target audiences. We adopted an open and simple style for the site to meet the needs of our stakeholders and the feedback we have received from them has been very enthusiastic. The director of one victim group said 'Your website is the most victim-friendly within the CJS, I think you should win an award'. Well, we did!"
ECRU Managing Director Matt Williams said: "I am thrilled that the achievements of the new Parole Board website have been recognised with this important award from CIPR. The judging panel were comparing the best of the best in the Excellence Awards 2008 website or microsite category, and for us to come out on top is extremely rewarding. The secret of our success is simple though - we share the Parole Board's conviction that the criminal justice system can be improved through clear, accessible and usable communication, that the victims of crime can better achieve justice, and through these steps we can improve the society in which we live.
CIPR President Elisabeth Lewis-Jones said: "Only the cream of the PR industry receives a CIPR Excellence Award, which recognises the vital contribution PR makes to business and society. With the quality of entries improving year-on-year, this year's winning campaigns faced the stiffest competition to-date to rise to the top. This is a fantastic achievement and they are to be congratulated."
Notes to Editors
The Parole Board website can be found at http://www.paroleboard.gov.uk
The ECRU website can be found at http://www.ecru.co.uk
The CIPR Awards website can be found at http://www.cipr.co.uk/excellence
The CIPR Excellence Awards recognise and reward best practice in public relations throughout the UK and acknowledge personal and team achievement at the highest professional level. The awards this year received a record 856 entries across 27 categories. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations, the professional body for PR practitioners in the UK, has over 9,500 members, involved in all aspects of the public relations industry and is the largest body of its type in Europe.
The Parole Board is an independent body that works with its criminal justice partners to protect the public by risk assessing prisoners to decide whether they can safely be released into the community.
For further information please look on the Parole Board website at http://www.paroleboard.gov.uk
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