Joining forces with sister agencies Bunnyfoot, Catch, and Access, Nomensa is now GAIN. A new name and expanded skillset - but with the same passion for helping partners to build experiences that truly cater to the needs of their users via a human-centred approach rooted in validating decisions with your constituents.
As well as being long-term Drupal experts, Gain is a world leader in user experience and accessibility.
They offer all the services needed for a successful website, focusing on forming one team with their clients.
They've been part of the Drupal community since 2004, building websites across the private, charity and government sectors, creating design systems, accessibility audits and large-scale digital transformations.
They have all the certifications you'd expect, including ISO9001, ISO27001 and CyberEssentials Plus, alongside expertise in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform, CI/CD and DevSecOps.
By working with multiple councils, we've been able to design and deliver tools that genuinely improve people’s lives.
The collaborative nature of LGD allows us to apply evidence-based fundamentals, tackle region-specific challenges creatively, and share those learnings with the wider LGD community. It’s incredibly rewarding to see how open collaboration, can create such meaningful impact.
As a group founded on the principles of psychology, accessibility, and humanising technology, they work to incorporate people’s lived experiences into the foundation of their projects. LocalGov Drupal is an excellent way of setting a constantly improving baseline for the common challenges that councils have, informed by the combined experiences of the platform’s diverse and growing user-base.
Using LGD elevates the customer experience by building on the existing features. This means more time can be dedicated to the high-impact work, both feeding back improvements and focusing on what makes your council unique.
GAIN's Contribution to LocalGov Drupal
GAIN has contributed to the code, community and documentation of LocalGov Drupal. Code changes include improvements to cookie compliance support and the base theme, as well as modules to support content ownership, connection to Azure B2C authentication and work around migrating from Contentful.
They also participate in LGD meetings and groups, including "Merge Tuesdays", “Technical Drop-In", "Accessibility Governance Group" and the SOLR search integration group. We have demonstrated our work as part of community events and written documentation on Azure AD/Entra single sign-on.
GAIN and Essex County Council
In 2022, Essex Council made the strategic decision to consolidate their various technologies and move to the LocalGov Drupal ecosystem, and they asked GAIN to help with the migration and build. GAIN delivered two new websites for Essex County Council to replace their public-facing & intranet sites, using LGD. Using out-of-the-box features of LGD & minimal custom code allowed for delivering high-quality sites quickly.
Customising workflows and roles within LocalGov Drupal for a more efficient editor experience, working with content teams to understand how they manage changes and that proper ownership of content could be supported.
The Intranet project was particularly innovative, especially given that it is an open intranet, giving wider access to read the guidance that ECC gives its staff.
This was important for Essex, both for transparency, and to also ensure that all their staff could find the information they needed. No longer will people have to log in to a staff laptop or shared computer to learn about processes. This change especially supports those who work for the council in non-office-based roles, such as school crossing guard attendants, highway engineers, and social workers.
They are still working closely with Essex Council to deliver development enhancements, including live service and hosting. They also provide content, design and user research support to extend their design standards. In particular, they’ve been helping them to enhance the flexibility of their digital publishing through additional design capabilities.
From births and deaths to paying for parking fines, council services touch every part of our lives. That’s why it’s so exciting to see Essex County Council work tirelessly to ensure its services feel personal, local and representative of its community.
Other councils GAIN have worked with:
• Cornwall County Council
• Derbyshire County Council
• Essex County Council
• Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council
• Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council
• Brent London Borough Council
• Camden London Borough Council
• Lambeth London Borough Council
• Haringey London Borough Council
• Colchester City Council
• .. and others
Working in partnership with Local Councils, knowing that we will save the council money and build experiences that make a real difference to the people of that community, is extremely rewarding.