Source eGOV AU , Tuesday,
January 06, 2009 By Craig
Thomler
http://egovau.blogspot.com/2009/01/does-your-department-adequately-manage.html
… The ANAO (Australian
National Audit Office) followed up
with four recommendations for agencies,
- develop a clearly stated
purpose for each website;
- strengthen agency
decision making through improved risk management;
- review content management
processes and practices; and
- strengthen performance
monitoring and reporting….
See: Australian National Audit Office (ANAO)
http://www.anao.gov.au/uploads/documents/2008-09_Audit_Report_131.pdf
See also on this blog:
UK, NAO: 'Government on the
internet: progress in delivering information services online'
Ireland, eGovernment : report of the
Comptroller and Auditor General
eGovernment: Benchmarking,tools,
theory, and practice and other useful papers on measurement
Approaches to evaluation of websites
for public sector services
No
special report issued by the European Court of Accounts ?
As a former
and current business owner I'm constantly considering and reflecting on our
numbers regarding how well my agency's online channel is performing. My goal is
to maintain an ongoing awareness of our performance and why we're performing in
that manner.
To that end my agency has multiple web reporting systems in place and I use
them regularly - given that I've been measuring websites now for over ten years
and have a good feel for valid and invalid web metrics.
For me measurement leads to effective management. Without the information from
measurement over time I cannot make good decisions regarding our online
channel, provide expert advise to senior decision-makers, advocate for
appropriate development of the channel or prioritise the content updates that
are most importance to our audience.
However this doesn't appear to be the experience for all website managers
across the Federal public service.
Per a report in the Canberra Times, the Commonwealth
Auditor-General says many Federal Government agencies inadequately manage their
websites, are unaware what they cost to run, and risk providing the public with
outdated or inaccurate information.
The ANAO report, available as a PDF at Government Agencies' Management of
their Websites was published on 16 December and involved a survey of 40 federal agencies,
followed by an audit of five.
See: Australian National Audit Office
http://www.anao.gov.au/uploads/documents/2008-09_Audit_Report_131.pdf
It found that agencies were increasingly relying on websites to provide
information and services to the public and that,
This
increased reliance by agencies on websites to provide information and services,
brings with it a greater need for agencies to have sound approaches to manage
their sites. Poorly managed websites not only increase the risk that information
and services are not provided to website users at reasonable cost to
government, but can have adverse impacts on other service channels such as
extra work loads for call centres and inquiry outlets.
It also
commented that,
All of the
audited agencies monitored website user activity and satisfaction. However,
none of the audited agencies reported specifically on how their websites were
meeting their respective purposes and how they were contributing to agency
business goals. Also, most agencies had little information on the costs of
operating and maintaining their websites. Agencies with websites that pose
significant risks to service delivery or that have multiple websites would
benefit from an improved understanding of their website user activity, performance,
and cost information.
In the forty agencies surveyed, only six maintained firm website cost data -
meaning that the other 34 did not have a clear idea how much their online
channel cost relative to other channels.
In another case the ANAO reported that one agency simply provided raw weekly
hit data to management as a performance tracking tool, with no explanation of
what 'hits' meant, nor what a good or bad outcome would be.
The ANAO (Australian National Audit
Office) followed up
with four recommendations for agencies,
- develop a clearly stated
purpose for each website;
- strengthen agency
decision making through improved risk management;
- review content management
processes and practices; and
- strengthen performance
monitoring and reporting.
I agree with all of these
recommendations. They're an important basis for the management of any type of
channel, program, project or product - and a website is certainly no exception.
By Craig
Thomler
Tags: egovernment, emetrics, governance, management, report
see at http://egovau.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-well-do-australian-government-sites.html
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
How well do Australian government sites meet WCAG 2.0? - still some way to go states new report
While I've not yet seen an official statement confirming whether Australian government will support the second version of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), there has been a report released by UsabilityOne reviewing 12 Federal Government websites against the guidelines.
The Accessibility Industry Report found a number of issues across the sites that would need to be addressed for them to be WCAG 2.0 compatible.
To quote UsabilityOne,
None of the websites audited adhere to all criteria in the latest accessibility guidelines.
Have you looked into making your site compliance with WCAG 2.0?
Or are you waiting for the official government position?
Posted by: jraybaut | February 12, 2009 at 08:47 PM