WIREDGOV

Socitm has published a briefing for top teams in local authorities showing how they can take advantage of digital and mobile technologies in response to the challenges of austerity.

A few places are also still available for the annual Learning from Better connected event which will take place on 15 May in London. Further details from www.socitm.net/events/event/309/

Better connected 2013: a briefing for the top management team draws on research compiled for Socitm's latest annual survey of all council websites.

As well analysing the performance of websites, the Better connected 2013 research also examined councils' use of social media, email alerts, customer accounts and other digital tools for citizen engagement and service delivery. Key findings and lessons from this research are set out in the briefing.

In a section Responding to the rise of mobile, the briefing points out that the use of mobile devices for accessing council websites is increasing rapidly, thanks to the latest generation of smartphones and tablets. Socitm data, says the briefing, suggests that around 23% of visits to council websites are now made on mobile devices.

However, Better connected's assessment of council website readiness for mobile rated just 8% of all councils as very good, and a further 17% as satisfactory. The remaining 75% were rated poor.

In the section Increasing citizens' digital engagement the briefing highlights the fact that councils are now using online customer accounts to provide service users with the sort of facilities available from online banking or shopping. Users benefit from easy access to records about their use of council services, while the council benefits from data about service user activity and gains an extremely cost effective communications channel.

Better connected 2013: a briefing for the top management team is available now at www.socitm.net free of charge to Socitm Insight subscribers. Non-Insight subscribers who are members of Socitm can order it for £40 and all others for £50.