We’ve Discovered an Untapped Local Authority Gold Mine
An overlooked problem
We think we’ve uncovered a big stumbling block when it comes to local authorities delivering excellent public services.
Our research tells us local authorities aren’t using their website data as effectively as they could be.
Our research
We’ve been busy collecting data from local authorities across Wales measuring how well they are using their website data.
The results so far indicate that most of the local authorities use the “out of the box” default settings for Google Analytics.
This surprised us.
It’s the 21st century and local authorities have become living, breathing digital entities. The digital services they provide are increasingly being transformed from paper to binary and as a result websites are not a thing that local authorities use —in many ways local authorities are websites.
So why are they neglecting their website data?
Whether its reporting your bin collection online or registering to pay council tax, a websites importance in the delivery of end to end digital services cannot be understated.
As more services become digitised local authority websites are becoming bigger and more complex often generating vast amounts of data.
If harnessed correctly, website analytics can help an organisation to:
- Understand user behaviour
- Establish user acquisition
- Track advertising/marketing campaigns
- Optimise user experience
- Recognise behaviour flow
Our research suggests, in the current state, Welsh local authorities are delivering web services based on assumptions about what the user needs rather than acting on the evidence.
In other words, blindly.
Commitment to the cause
Many local authorities have had an analytics tool sifting through their website data for years.
They may have forgotten about it under all the pressures they face.
We’re here to remind them that they’re sitting on top of an untapped gold mine of information.
How we can help
We’ve worked with central government, local government, private and third sector organisations on basic to very complex website analytics projects.
We recognise the need in local government to get better with data and it’s our mission to help them do this.
So we’ve decided to hold a Google Analytics for the Public Sector Workshop in Cardiff on the 15th of November.
It’s aimed at helping public sector servants who work in digital, marketing or service delivery get better at setting up and extrapolating insight from their organisations website data.
We hope to see you there.
Thanks for reading.
I work at The Satori Lab.
You might be interested to read our blog about the first things we look at on Google analytics or perhaps what data analytics services we offer.
