Douglas Borough Council has a new website with a new ‘look and feel’ and increased self-service functionality.
Designed to serve as a community resource the new site has been developed largely in-house by the Council’s ICT team and builds on the successful 24/7 online channel offering first seen with the introduction of the Henry Bloom Noble Library’s site, library.douglas.gov.im, and eBooks service. More recently the Council has been raising its social media profile, its Facebook page having attracted more than 2000 followers to date.
Head of the Council’s ICT team Daniel Looney said ‘significant effort’ had gone into the design to ensure the site was straightforward to use, that content was easy to manage and information easy to find. He continued: ‘I am very proud to have delivered this first phase of the Council’s new website. We have been pragmatic in our approach, drawn on the skills of our own people and demonstrated that well thought out technology solutions can be achieved cost effectively.
‘Feedback to date has been excellent. The success of this digital channel is due largely, I believe, to our having stayed close to our customers, understanding and responding to their needs. We shall continue to enhance the website, rolling out more online services over the coming months driven, as always, by the customer being the focus of all that we do.’
Council leader Councillor David Christian said: ‘The new website has been achieved through a collaborative in-house approach and reflects one of the key objectives we set out in our Constitution, adopted in May 2012, which was to be more accessible to our customers. This new website not only offers people a greater choice of options for how they access our services but also provides us - Members and officers alike - alternative channels through which to connect with our tenants and ratepayers.
‘There is, however, more to the new site. It brings together news and information about the town, so helps to promote Douglas, and also acts as a gateway to our services.
‘While fully embracing the digital age, being focused on innovation and committed to developing a wide range of online self-service opportunities, as the Island’s largest local authority we shall never lose sight of the importance of engaging directly with our customers. This new website complements the bedrock on which this municipal body was formed in 1896, namely to serve the people of Douglas.’
To view the new website, visit douglas.im. Visitors are urged to provide feedback, for which an online form is provided.
