Local Directgov joined up all 388 local authorities in England. To do this all councils had to be engaged– a passive “done to” status was not an option. The team working approach planned and executed to achieve this result was both pioneering and unprecedented.

LDG employed 2 innovative strategies which contributed to the success of the project. First it employed (seconded) local government officers to engage with their peers and second, many of these staff were regionally based. Experience and local knowledge opened many doors which may otherwise have been closed. Further, these enagagment support officers did what it said on the tin – they offered support. This real, local and helpful approach was appreciated by the stakeholders. .

The network established proved a huge success, strengthening local/central government relationships and raising credibility in the Department for Communities and Local Government’s (DCLG) ability to deliver. The same formula will now be used to roll out Government Connect, a National programme supported by DCLG.

The projects and programme were successfully delivered with the effective use of 'PRINCE 2' Project management methodology and 'MSP' Programme management. Key to the implementation and deployment of LDG was effective stakeholder communication and management. Multiple channels of communication were employed including e-mail alerts, feedback forms from events, articles in magazines, journals, newsletters, ambient media, workshops, conference, 'How to guides' posted in website, face-to-face engagement.

LDG’s unique technical solution has changed public perception of accessing online Local Authoritiy services. The virtual one-stop-shop gives a simple seamless transaction from Central Government through to local services.

The programme also delivered “VOICE” an online toolkit including a website publishing tool which enables Local Authorities to support their community groups, Neighbourhoods and/or Parish Councils to create their own websites

Nominated by Joanne Chew, 01 March 2007

What a steaming pile of manure! Local DirectGov has been a HUGE waste of taxpayers money and has delivered NOTHING of value. It stands as a shining example of this government's blundering incompetence in delivering IT projects (or anything else except perhaps illegal wars and undeserved death and misery for millions of Iraqis)

Submitted by Robert Johns, 11 April 2007

This project has been an abject failure, and has served up nothing but unfulfilled promises. It was badly conceived, badly delivered and has wasted a mountain of cash. Those responsible for this farce of a project should be barred from public office for all time.

Submitted by Peter Lank, 11 April 2007

I take it this nomination is some kind of April Fool's joke?

I'm a local authority webmaster; and LDG took stupendous amounts of my time to comply with whilst delivering essentially no traffic to the website. Typically we see a few 10's of referers per month from DirectGov / Local DirectGov compared with many tens of thousands per month from Google. No prizes for guessing where my time in search engine optimisation is better spent...

It would be worth investigating not just how much money has been directly spent on this shambles - and for what miniscule benefit - but also how much more has been spent in wasted time across 388 local authorities. perhaps a reputable magazine with an interest in civic society might care to carry out some enquiries.

Submitted by J James, 11 April 2007

Congratulations to the Local Direct Gov team for once again giving everyone the opportunity to give them a public kicking. Welcome back, guys, you've been away too long!

I should like to pick up on one grain of truth in your self-congratulatory write up. The "engagement support officer" in my neck of the woods was indeed very helpful. In fact, the nature of the "support" was that they did ALL the work. 'Cos there was no way I was going to. I predicted a disaster at the time and I'm glad to see that my powers of prescience didn't fail me.

I loved the Prince2 comment too! Shame they forgot that every Prince2 project begins with a business case.

Can't wait for Government Connect to be nominated next year!!

Submitted by Jonty Grimbergen, 16 April 2007

Bring back open.gov.uk!

Submitted by D Irectgove, 17 April 2007

As Private Eye would say - 'trebles all round'!

Local DirectGov was a completely wasted opportunity to bring together disparate council information. This nomination consists of a tissue of half-truths, but does show how unknowledgable they assume those who award the New Media awards are. Now we know what happened to 'Comical Ali'...

Submitted by Marketing Gurus ahoy, 17 April 2007

You can see how valuable Local Directgov is by taking a quick visit to www.directionlessgov.com

Submitted by Another LA worker, 18 April 2007

In March my LA site received approximately 0.33% of its page views from visitors referred by Directgov and LocalDirectGov. Need I say more.

Submitted by G Brockbank, 18 April 2007

As someone involved in the building of two sites that really links central and local government (www.bdirect.org.uk and www.bradford.gov.uk in case the award organisers want to take a look at how it should be done), can I just ask why there isn't the possibility of a zero, or even minus one, rating for this nomination.

Given that every local authority in England and Wales was required by the e-gov initiative to put a tick in the "register an interest in Local Directggov", it is extremely rich of them to say "all councils had to be engaged– a passive “done to” status was not an option."

Can anyone come up with a business case for the amount of time and money spent on providing a service to the customer who doesn't know which his local authority is (in our case these must be the citizens who have somehow avoided ever getting a council tax bill, as that certainly has our website plastered all over it...)

Submitted by Helen Clipsom, 20 April 2007

As the escapade in Iraq showed us, you can throw as much money as you've got at something and get a result. Whether it was either the right result or a sustainable solution cannot, however, be guaranteed.

Submitted by Jonty Grimbergen, 23 April 2007

This nominee is a joke right? Considering work being done by Local Authorities, which surpasses this nominee by far, I'd suggest it's a poor joke. Strike off this nomination. In fact, who is responsible for nominating this farcical site? Heads should roll (figuratively speaking of course)!

Submitted by Lee, 25 April 2007

It's obviously some LDG saddo who nominated the programme, as nobody else would in a million years. What a joke!

Submitted by Lucy Davies, 25 April 2007

Hey DirectGov, you're a month early with the April Fool!

Submitted by James, 29 April 2007

Interesting to see The Register finally picking up on this — I would have joined the collective steam-letting before but it seems to be to - well - hot air.

We do need directgov. For one thing, every other country's got a portal.

But the fact is that the chief gatekeeper to government services online is currently Google, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Not only does Whitehall not seem to be dealing with this but neither do local authorities — so be careful casting too many stones.

Submitted by Paul Canning, 15 May 2007

Joanne Chew is the project manager for...errr. oh, Local Directgov. No shame.

Submitted by Oliver, 16 May 2007