The Scottish Navigation List, the Scottish Services List and the Scottish A - Z, developed as part of the National A - Z Project, led by Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire Councils, are a set of tools and standards to improve council web content organisation, search and navigation and support consistent self-service for citizens.
Adopting these national standards has created real efficiencies for East Renfrewshire Council. Graeme McWilliams, community information development manager, said "It has saved time which would have otherwise been spent devising a bespoke navigation structure.
"The Scottish Navigation List (SNL) has enabled council staff to focus on the type of content they may want to include on the website. The overall framework was an excellent starting point for our departments and services to review their content and for them to consider what information our customers, clients and residents needed to access from the website.
"The Council's website has been integrated to the Council's Customer Relationship Management ( CRM ) system used by the council to track and manage customer interactions. The Scottish Navigation List provides the CRM system's navigation structure and therefore offers consistency across service channels."
Using these national standards has helped East Renfrewshire's customers to select the information that meets their needs and to select 17 applications to search including:
- jobs
- planning applications
- councillor information
- food hygiene reports which give details on food premises in the area
- integrated Google Maps and
- heritage information.
The restructure of the website focused on a demand for dealing with customer enquiries at the first point of contact and the early feedback has been extremely positive and warmly welcomed by customers.
"The council aims to make sure that the website is the council's primary communication mechanism, that it's the number one choice among our residents for information, news and to do business with the council," added Graeme.
