Westminster City Hall website bill ‘too high’

Published: 7 May, 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM

WESTMINSTER Council has defended the amount of money it spends on its website after it was revealed it pays external contractors more than any ­other local authority in the country.
It said the fee of almost £1million spent since 2008 was justifiable in order to ­provide the best services for Westminster residents and was in no way “excessive”.
The city council spent £940,521 on web services, significantly more than the next highest spender Barking and Dagenham at £575,000, according to figures released under Freedom of Information powers.
The company behind the request – the online business portal PeoplePerHour – said local authorities were far outstripping their private counterparts in spending on websites, condemning the trend as “extreme and unnecessary”.

Labour criticised the spending as an “insult” to residents in light of the recent round of job losses and cuts to the voluntary budget.
On average UK businesses spent £3,297 per year on web services compared with an average UK council’s spend of £40,917 during 2008/2009.
Last December the council’s recently revamped site won “best corporate website” at the Corporate Communications awards.David Wilde, chief information officer at the council, said: “This is a misleading survey which isn’t comparing like for like. As a billion-pound organisation providing more than 300 services in the heart of London it is crucial that we have modern, but cost-effective web services which provide easy-to-access and up-to-date information and enable people to do business with us online. Westminster Council is the biggest parking, planning and licensing authority in the country and over the last year more than £22million worth of transactions went through our website, making it one of the most heavily used local government sites in the UK.
“This follows the successful relaunch of the site last summer and now more than three million people use it every year searching everything from planning applications and paying their council tax to renewing library books and reporting noisy neighbours.

“The relaunched site cost £129,000 and we have also recently replaced a number of other IT systems linked to the website which has saved taxpayers almost £400,000 in running costs from April this year. This is why our investment last year was higher than usual.”
Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the council’s Labour group, said: “This latest example of Conservative extravagance is an insult to Westminster residents and another kick in the teeth for the hundreds of council staff who have lost their jobs. A good website is important but at a time of economic hardship spending £1million is way over the top. Only last week we revealed that the council is paying a temporary contractor £900 a day, equivalent to £216,000 a year.
“Is there no end to this financial madness?”