The publishing platform created by councils, for councils

LocalGov Drupal helps councils build better sites at lower cost

Over the past month, we’ve been rebuilding one of the most important pieces of evidence behind LocalGov Drupal (LGD): the real-world costs of implementing and running council websites.

Now that LGD has been in use for over 5 years (yes, it really is that long), and over 60 councils are using or currently developing their site on the platform, we finally have the scale to produce hard data, based not on assumptions or supplier estimates, but on actual council figures obtained through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and public procurement records. Please note that we did not initiate any of the FOI requests; see below for more details. 

This work (with a little help from ChatGPT) has enabled us to refresh our business case and strengthen the evidence that LGD delivers better websites at lower cost. It also gives councils new headline statistics they can use in their own internal conversations with finance teams, senior leadership, procurement departments, and service directors.

 

Here’s what we found — and why it matters.

Why we did this work

LocalGov Drupal has grown quickly. In the early days, we relied on anecdotal evidence (“open source tends to be cheaper”, “Ongoing costs are lower”, “Reuse saves time”), a small number of case studies and economic modelling with the help of economists from the Local Digital Fund. 

Everyone knew this to be true — and early adopter councils reported substantial savings — but we didn’t yet have the data at scale.

Now, with dozens of councils running LGD, we can test those assumptions against reality.

To do this properly, we analysed:

  • 43 FOI responses from councils that provided costings. The FOI requests were carried out by Emma Johnson, we aren’t aware of who this person is or why they put these requests in.
  • Supplier contract values from Contracts Finder, ModernGov and local transparency registers
  • Data from LGD suppliers and participating councils

We cleaned, validated, and normalised all the figures, removed a small number of outliers (e.g., costs from Croydon, which originated the code alongside Brighton and therefore incurred additional costs), and recalculated the entire business case from scratch.

The result? A data-driven, verifiable set of headline stats that reflect what councils spend today.

 

The new headline stats

After analysing FOIs, council contract registers and supplier pricing, here are the updated headline figures for LocalGov Drupal.

1. LGD reduces the cost of a website rebuild by 30%–50%.

  • Most LGD rebuilds cost £70k–£150k.
  • Most proprietary rebuilds cost £80k–£250k or more.

This is one of the clearest findings: councils dramatically reduce the cost of a full rebuild by choosing LGD.

2. Councils typically save £30,000–£90,000 on developer costs.

Across the dataset, the majority of councils reported savings in this range compared with proprietary suppliers.

This is likely due to reuse: councils don’t need to reinvent page types, patterns, or templates, and we never charge for additional modules.

3. LGD ongoing costs can be as much as 50% lower than those of major competitors.

FOI data shows:

  • Median LGD ongoing cost: £21,625k/year
  • Typical proprietary CMS ongoing cost: £30k–£120k/year

The savings increase over time, especially as the LGD platform continues to grow and improve through shared investment, while proprietary systems have annual renewal fees.

4. Councils can avoid around £50k/year in licence fees and proprietary upgrades.

Every LGD improvement benefits everyone.

There are no licence fees, no paywalls, no proprietary upgrades and no hidden costs.

5. LGD rebuilds launch 6–12 months faster than traditional CMS projects.

Because most of the architecture and design system already exists — including content types, design patterns, and templates — councils can focus on what matters: content, user journeys, and service improvements.

 

How we collected and validated the data

We started by gathering all publicly available data on CMS and digital platform costs:

FOI requests

Someone by the name of Emma Johnson submitted dozens of FOI requests between 2021 and 2024, asking councils about:

  • Cost of their previous CMS
  • Cost of their LGD implementation
  • Ongoing annual running costs
  • Hosting and support fees
  • Associated digital platform spend


These FOIs form the backbone of our dataset.

Public procurement records

With the help of ChatGPT we also reviewed:

  • Contracts Finder
  • ModernGov decision papers
  • Transparency registers
  • Supplier award notices
  • G-Cloud call-off contracts

This gave us verified contract values for many of our competitors.

Cleaning and analysis

We:

  • Normalised all costs into comparable formats
  • Removed outliers where data was misreported
  • Updated incorrect or legacy figures
  • Disaggregated competitor data to look only at CMS elements of their contracts
  • Recalculated means, medians and ranges to ensure a realistic picture

What this means for councils

Whether you’re considering joining LGD or are already part of the community, this new evidence gives you a stronger internal business case.

The numbers speak for themselves: LGD delivers modern, accessible, user-centred council websites at a significantly lower cost.

 

References

1. FOI Responses Used in This Analysis

All FOI responses used in this analysis were sourced from the publicly accessible WhatDoTheyKnow platform via submissions made by Emma Johnson. FOI index (Emma Johnson).

Responses used include cost data from (non-exhaustive list):

  • Bath & North East Somerset
  • Barking & Dagenham
  • Bedford Borough Council
  • Bracknell Forest
  • Brighton & Hove
  • Cambridge City
  • Elmbridge Borough Council
  • Essex County Council
  • Hammersmith & Fulham
  • Hart District Council
  • Kensington & Chelsea
  • Knowsley
  • London Councils
  • Milton Keynes City Council
  • Newcastle City Council
  • Newport
  • North Devon
  • Rutland
  • Waltham Forest
  • Wokingham
  • West Lindsey
  • Westminster City Council
  • Argyll & Bute

Example FOI response (Essex)
 

2. Public Contract & Procurement Registers

Below is a selection of publicly available contract award notices and procurement sources used to verify proprietary CMS costs.

Jadu CMS Contracts

GOSS Interactive Contracts

3. Aggregator and Meta Sources

BidStats – Public Sector Contract Summaries - https://bidstats.uk/

GovSpendBase – Supplier Spending Data - https://govspendbase.co.uk/

G-Cloud Service Definitions (CMS, CRM, Digital Platforms)

4. Government Guidance

5. Other sources

Other case studies, implementation timelines and performance evidence:

If you have additional data to share, please let us know. We’re always happy to amend our figures based on new information.