MOVES are being made to improve Swindon Borough Council’s website to make it easier to use for the town’s residents.

An IT strategy, developed earlier this year, highlighted the current website is not as effective as it could be as the council attempts to improve its customer service.

The overall aim is to make it far easier for people to carry out key transactions, such as paying council tax.

While there are no plans to exclusively go online, council chiefs recognise the need to move with the times and make things more accessible for people.

Gavin Calthrop, head of communications, said: “The main basis for the change is that we are trying to keep up with how customers want to interact.

“There are good things online but there are also bad things and that is what we are going to address.

“We have looked at what other councils have been doing and they have gone for a number of different things.

“The aim is for the top ten transactions to be carried out online. What we are not doing is putting everything online, which would alienate many sections of the population.

“What it will allow us to do is free up resources to focus on the transactions which are still done face-to-face and for people who don’t use the internet so much.”

A process has begun to find a company to set up a new look website, with the tendering process starting in the coming weeks.

They are looking for an ‘open source’ website which will give the council the opportunity to alter the website based on the feedback of users.

It is hoped the new site will be ready to use next year and the main functions will then be added over the course of the year.

“The advantage of going for an Open Source is that we will be able to respond to feedback easily,” said Gavin.

“If people to us and says ‘it would be easier if there was a link to click here’ then we could change it reasonably easily.

“With the tebder coming up we cannot reveal any budgets but it is being done in a cost effective manner.

“Once we have the site online, it will then be several months before everything is in place. When it is things will be far easier for users.”

Visit the website at www.swindon.gov.uk.