The publishing platform created by councils, for councils.

Councils

LocalGov Drupal is a community of digital leaders, developers, and content designers from local councils all across the UK.

We work together to produce a best practice web publishing platform that is freely available to all participating councils. It helps councils to deliver a better digital experience for their citizens while at the same time saving money for vital frontline services.

398 UK councils are each rebuilding their main websites every 3-5 years. The user needs are largely the same, but councils don’t swap notes or collaborate, instead creating expensive standalone solutions to shared problems. LocalGov Drupal is the antidote to this.

It's not just for a particular 'type' of council. See these case studies of how councils with different resources and needs are using LocalGov Drupal. 

Improve service delivery, save money, reduce risk, take control of your digital assets and keep pace with change.
Neil Williams, Chief Digital Officer at Croydon Council, former head of GOV.UK

Co-creating a public asset for the 21st Century

The LocalGov Drupal platform is a public digital asset, created by councils and for councils. As more councils participate the greater its value. This stretches beyond simply the platform itself and into our shared pool of user research and expertise.

Lowering costs

Our community understands the need to deliver high quality, user friendly services for the public, while managing tight budgets. We estimate that using LocalGov Drupal will reduce the cost of building a new council website by up to 80% (depending on the extras a council wishes to add). More on the costs and business case for moving to the LGD CMS. 

Most councils also have many sites outside of their main website, for services, places, tourism etc. Our Microsites Platform provides a simple way to build and manage these additional websites at vastly reduced cost. 

Improving Service Delivery

Council websites built on our platform follow best practice guidelines on all our pages. This gives service users a fantastic digital experience. 

Many of our content formats and patterns are based on Government Digital Service standards. Everything we’ve built is based on user research and tried and tested by the public sector. For example our step by step pages use GOV.UK concepts and styles. 

The LocalGov Drupal base theme is lightweight, WCAG AA accessible and responsive, reducing the need for citizens to call council operatives by making what they need easy to find and use.

In addition, our participating councils are swapping ideas and best practice tips all the time. Collaboration helps us to do a better job for our citizens.

Reducing risks

We always think long-term and are creating council websites on a platform that will stand the test of time.

Being part of a group of sector leading developers means that you’ll never get left behind.

We also regularly update the platform with the latest security updates. 

Control over your website

Members of our community have complete control over their websites. The code is generic enough for councils to use with ease and adaptable enough to create unique websites.

For content designers and managers this means they can easily make content changes and quickly react to needs of the public and elected representatives.

For developers this means that they can add functionality as needed, but also gain features that have been worked on collectively.

How it works

LocalGov Drupal is not a supplier, we do not carry out development work for councils. There are a number of great suppliers that have worked on LGD and are available to hire, and/or you can bring in your own agency or supplier. 

Adding new functionality is often a collaborative effort. Participating councils work together to develop new features and functionality.

Councils jointly decide on a product roadmap of what new functionality to add based on user research and data. Councils can also create features outside of the roadmap which may be brought into the the main platform for all to use. 

 

[The Council is] over the moon! Yeah, they're, they're very happy indeed. It is very much aligned with the council's objectives, to collaborate more and simplify and centralise as much as possible.

Choose your level of commitment

The code for the LGD platform is available to take and use as you wish, but the greatest benefits are to be had from participating. 

There are many ways that councils can engage with and contribute to the project.

Find out more about our subscription and membership model.

 

Pitching LGD to senior decision-makers

We often get asked for any resources to help Heads of Digital (and others) in pitching LocalGov Drupal to senior decision-makers so we created this Google Slide deck that briefly covers most of what people need for this, including: 

  • What is LocalGov Drupal?
  • Why is LGD needed / problem trying to solve (LDD)
  • Who is already involved
  • Business case
  • Benefits 
  • Features & content types
  • Case study
  • Resources and documentation (what you need)

Please take a copy and cut/paste/hack it as you need. 

Also, see the case studies of how councils with different resources and needs use LocalGov Drupal. 

 

 

If you would like to find out more or have any questions just drop us a line at hello@localgovdrupal.org. We are always happy to chat about LocalGov Drupal, provide a demo of the platform, or show how councils are using it.