The need to increase the level of online transactions available via the Council’s website was a key driver in Edinburgh Council’s recent selection of Jadu, a leading CMS solutions provider, to deliver a ‘world class’ customer experience.
Jadu will be working with the City of Edinburgh Council to support the Council's web strategy which aims to deliver an integrated and 'joined up' customer service by 2012.
"We needed a new platform that would be adaptable and scalable to incorporate future innovations and new technologies. Jadu provided the most economically advantageous solution in terms of both quality and price. The evaluation panel was satisfied that the product closely matched the Council's requirements" says Isabell Reid, Head of Communications, City of Edinburgh Council.
"The opportunity to deliver open standards for content and data for such a prestigious city is both exciting and hugely influential. Delivering a large city council website and Intranet, underpinned by Jadu CMS and Google search technology presents a great opportunity to deliver something outstanding for the people of Edinburgh". Says Suraj Kika, CEO of Jadu.
Edinburgh City Council's website and intranet has become increasingly important to Edinburgh's citizens, with 71% of all Edinburgh adults using the internet at home, (compared to a national average in Scotland of 66% and 65% across the whole of the UK.) A strategic review of the Council's communications services led to the development of a new web strategy, as part of the Council's 'Achieving Excellence' Customer Services Programme. This programme aims to deliver more effective channel management and allows the Council to deliver a totally integrated customer service experience.
Accessibility is one of the key components of our vision for the Council's Internet and Intranet sites. The fact that Jadu enables this was a big plus for us in implementing culture change. The ease of use found in Jadu's author environment will provide an important motivator for staff to make better use of the web.
Sally Kerr, Council Websites Manager
Additional key objectives for the new Council web site are to:
- Provide a credible 'first point' of contact for Edinburgh's citizens, visitors and Council staff to find the latest and most accurate Council information.
- Optimise the usability and accessibility of the Council's online services by providing choice of access ' any time, any place and from any type of device'.
- Encourage active citizenship and participation in policy-making through forums, blogs, surveys, consultations and web chats
- Evolve and improve online services in line with the recommendations of the Scottish Executive's OpenScotland Information Agreement Framework (OSIAF); the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
- Establish a platform that is adaptable and scalable to incorporate future innovations and new technologies that support web standards.
The City of Edinburgh Council undertook a full procurement process in its selection of Jadu CMS and intranet from a short list of five suppliers. Jadu's in-house team will design and implement the Council website, intranet and several satellite websites. The Council will be using a number of Jadu products and services including Jadu CMS 'Clearwater' which includes Jadu Galaxies, Jadu Rupa and the Jadu eConsultation module, Jadu Intranet 2.0 and Jadu XForms Professional.
Jadu will also be hosting the Council's website and secure Intranet to deliver a highly resilient and secure virtualised hosting service. Jadu has underpinned its web content management technology with the World's most powerful search engine, the Google Search Appliance. The Jadu CMS, Jadu Intranet System and Google appliances will be installed into Jadu's high security virtualised server infrastructure at Rackspace.
A Web Services Project Team has been set up and will lead the project, with a Council Project Board providing overall management of the project. The new Council website will be delivered first followed by the Intranet and then a number of smaller sites. The Council will be continually developing its web presence taking into account developing best practice and customer requirements. Following the initial deployment of the new Jadu sites the Council will also take advantage of new tools and technologies to provide these services in the most effective and efficient way.
