Project 02 / 08 — Digital Governance
Digital Platform Review
Client
North East Lincolnshire Council
Role
Digital Governance & Platform Strategy
Sector
Public Sector Digital Platform
Year
2025 — Present
Context
A council-wide digital platform programme had been running for two years following a technical failure that generated 140+ complaints within 24 hours.
The ambition was to evolve the council website into a resilient, cloud-hosted digital platform aligned to strategic priorities. Despite multiple technical improvements, delivery had stalled and lacked direction.
I was brought in to get the programme back on track and build a priority matrix so the working group could move again. But the deeper problem sat underneath the roadmap: the council wasn't operating one digital presence, it was operating a dozen — all competing for the same residents, none of them winning.
2M
Views a year — main statutory site
263k
Views a year — microsites, combined
No cross-tracking, no shared SEO signal, no shared front door, no shared update cadence — so residents explore whatever they land on, and no single platform builds momentum.
Core Issues Identified
Interim governance with unclear decision authority
Homepage redesign stuck in a prolonged "revamp" state
6,000+ pieces of content with complex duplication
No prioritisation of user-facing content
Web team operating in reactive, high-stress mode
Workstreams defined but not sequenced or dependency-mapped
The Fragmented Estate
A statutory site and a scatter of microsites, all publishing independently — with nothing telling any of them what the others were doing.
What I Did
Reframed the programme into actionable structure
- —Mapped cross-workstream dependencies
- —Designed a 3×3 impact matrix and prioritisation criteria
- —Created estimated effort modelling to guide sequencing
- —Facilitated workshops across IT, Web, Comms, Research & Transformation
Redesigned content governance workflow
- —Introduced a Salesforce submission form with strict criteria
- —Automated routing based on functional vs. promotional need
- —Reduced individual gatekeeping pressure
- —Embedded structured decision-making into the process
Structured six workstreams into phased delivery
- —Website rationalisation
- —CRM integration & unified digital platform
- —Resident mobile app
- —Marketing Cloud integration
- —Social media hub
- —Content excellence initiative
Prioritisation — Phase One
Six workstreams, plotted against resident impact and delivery effort — the sequencing argument made visible, and the case that first got the group moving again.
Estimated Effort Model — Phase One
| Workstream | Effort | Impact | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content Excellence | Med | High | 2 – 3 months |
| Website Rationalisation | Med | High | 4 – 5 sites |
| CRM Integration | High | High | 12 – 18 months |
| Marketing Cloud | Med | Med | 24 months (long-term) |
| Resident App | Low | Med | 6 – 12 months |
| Social Media Hub | Low | High | 6 – 12 months |
Beyond The Roadmap
Six sequenced workstreams would have got the programme moving. They would not have fixed the fragmentation underneath it.
Even executed perfectly, a six-workstream fix would still have left the council running a scattered digital estate — a statutory site and a handful of microsites, each fighting for the same residents with no visibility across any of it. So instead of revamping each site individually and retiring the rest, I proposed something bigger: fold everything into a single, platform-led, user-centric model, with the full resident journey visible in one place for the first time. A small number of other councils have taken the same approach and seen outsized returns on both the social and economic side — evidence that shaped how the proposal was framed.
The proposal was approved. It's now in build.
The New Architecture
Down to two core sites: the statutory site standing alone, and a single resident-facing platform — working name "the Hub" — for everything else.
A full URL audit ran across every legacy platform first, so consolidation doesn't mean erasure — each site keeps its own identity and content ownership, now sitting inside a shared, future-proofed structure instead of an orphaned domain. Inside the Hub, everything is organised around five clear pathways:
Visit
Everything for people exploring, visiting or spending time in the area.
Work & Invest
Business, employment and investment routes, brought together instead of split across separate microsites.
Create
Culture, arts and the creative economy — its own pathway rather than a buried subsection.
Live
Resident services and community life — the day-to-day reasons most people are actually here.
Get Online
The digital inclusion and skills connector — the direct link back into the Digital Inclusion Programme.
✓
URL audit complete
Every legacy platform mapped before a single page moved.
✓
Booking & payment built in
Capability the fragmented estate never had in one place.
✓
Cross-service working group live
Each service area now owns and creates its own Hub content.
Built To Be Measured
Everything the fragmented estate couldn't see becomes trackable inside the Hub — full journey tracking, evidence-based content decisions, booking and conversion data, comms effectiveness, and a working evidence base for investment decisions.
Operational
Microsites decommissioned · domain count reduced · duplicated content eliminated
Engagement
Total Hub sessions · cross-platform navigation rate · returning visitor rate
Social Value
Reach into low-engagement wards · Get Online pathway referrals · community feedback
Economic
Bookings vs. baseline · investment enquiries from the Hub · campaign conversion rate
Targets are set at pilot launch, reviewed at the end of Phase 1, and adjusted before Phase 2 — deliberately flexible rather than fixed two years out.
Phasing — Three Quarters, Flexible Throughout
A pilot migration, then measurement, then full transition — adjusted along the way rather than fixed in advance.
Pilot — a first cohort of sites migrates into the Hub
Measure — pilot results reviewed against baseline
Full transition — remaining sites migrate under the five pathways
Flexible cadence — targets revisited at each phase boundary
Impact / Pilot in progress
Landing page live; three microsite front ends already migrated onto the new architecture
Full resident journey tracking now technically possible for the first time across the estate
Working group established so service areas own their own Hub content
Reduced reactive content publishing behaviour, carried over from Phase One's governance workflow
Evidence base beginning to build for future investment and campaign decisions