UK government to axe 551 websites.

[Bugsy]

Why ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6252929.stm

[Tresco]

£9million a year saved seems like a reasonable answer.

Unless I've missed something there is nothing sinister in this. Apparently all the info will be available elsewhere on a couple of 'super sites'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6247703.stm

Edit: sorry, that's 9£ million over three years.

[Will]

At first sight it all seemed very pointless, but looking at the link in Tresco's post it explains things a bit more. Looking at the comments posted there there seems to be a lot of support - just as long as the so-called 'super-sites' don't become unweildy and impossible to use themselves, and that useful information isn't lost.

[Bugsy]

Hi Tres, no nothing sinister, but some of those sites are very useful.

I suppose they have to find some money for that stupendous overspend on the Olympics.......................................[:)]

edit, yes I see what you mean, after reading that other link........................[:)]

[Dick Smith]

It's an old project, and old news - I was working on this two years ago and more.

There was poor (none, actually) strategic control over the setting up of websites in the 'early days' and a lot of money was being wasted in implementation and maintenance. In some departments that has now been taken in-house (lots of parallel operations were going on) and rationalised. I think the the sums involved are far greater, though. Most of the websites were pretty useful, but a lot were maintained long after they had become obsolete, which was also leading to confusion.