Coal Authority

Avoiding the web update 'bottleneck' with a content management system from System Associates

The Coal Authority was established by Parliament in 1994 to facilitate the proper exploitation of the Nation's coal resources, whilst providing information and addressing liabilities for which it is responsible. The efficient and accurate provision of information, such as coal mining reports, is a crucial element to the Authority's operations. As you might expect from a modern public service organisation, the Coal Authority, has made extensive use of the Internet to publish much of its information.

Traffic to the sites has increased significantly in the last two years. In 2002, the public facing sites received, on average, 16,000 visits per month. By 2004, this number had risen to 41,000, sometimes creating considerable bottlenecks in the website updating process. There was a risk that important updates to the website would be delayed as only a handful of staff at the Authority were technically capable of undertaking the work. In addition, the volume of information available on the sites is continually growing and greater pressure is on the Authority to provide real time online information.

It was becoming apparent that greater management of Internet maintenance resources was required and, it was at this point, that the Coal Authority began working with System Associates, a provider of enterprise-wide Internet technologies, to improve Internet productivity.

The sites

Web operations at the Coal Authority comprise a mixture of employee Intranet and public facing information and e-commerce sites.

Intranet: The intranet is used by more than 140 staff located at the headquarters in Mansfield, and is also used by staff working in remote locations to access information and communications from the central Coal Authority IT network. It is a valuable source of human resources material, including internal job vacancies and policy documents. It also provides details of social events and holiday schedules.

www.coal.gov.uk offers a broad range of information for the public and features general information about the work of the Authority and the coal industry.

www.coalminingreports.co.uk is an e-commerce site containing information that helps identify whether properties are in areas that could potentially be affected by coal mining activity. It also facilitates the sale of coal mining reports online and is regularly handling 20,000 coal mining report requests per month, a rise of 13,000 since 2002.

Growing pains

Overall, more than 140,000 pages of web content on coal.gov.uk alone are accessed every month, requiring management by a highly effective content management system and search-engine facility.

Samantha Pettitt, Web Manager at the Coal Authority explains some of the issues they faced before implementing the content management system. She says, "We had reached a stage where use of the websites had increased quite dramatically in a short period of time. We were struggling to keep up with the number of page updates required to publish information in a timely manner and the team was under pressure from other departments to execute the updates on time. The logical solution was to devolve this responsibility and enable non-technical staff to undertake their own web page updates without any major HTML or web skill training. We also wanted the sites redesigned to look more up-to-date and make it much easier to find information quickly."

System Associates' content management framework called g-Serve addressed these issues, allowing content authors to transfer information to the websites in real-time, whilst maintaining integrity in the management and administration of the site.

Challenging selection process

The Coal Authority is required to undertake a full competitive tendering process to meet its corporate governance responsibilities and the tender submissions need to clearly demonstrate value for money, high levels of expertise, proven track record with similar systems and be able to complete a content management system within three months. In addition, the selected company would need to have knowledge of all e-government standards and guidelines, as well as the ability to deliver a solution that would provide the Coal Authority with a compliant system.

Sam Pettitt comments: "Many of our online initiatives have been driven by e-Government guidelines and directives such as e-GIF, the Disability Act and the Freedom of Information Act. System Associates demonstrated a depth of knowledge, proven success, experience and desire to work with us to achieve our aim to do business electronically and introduce further efficiency savings. The processes undertaken by our procurement delivery team instilled confidence that System Associates would deliver against our targets."

Looking good

Whilst System Associates was responsible for the new structure of the Coal Authority's Internet presence, the cosmetic overhaul was developed by a creative agency. System Associates and the agency worked very closely on the delivery of the completed project, with System Associates taking the lead on much of the functionality.

Using Macromedia's ColdFusion MX as a framework, System Associates developed a complete web content management system, (g-Serve), which embraces The Coal Authority's three sites.

All three sites, particularly those that are public facing, share a similar style and functionality, and make use of colour to distinguish the different sections. There is no duplication of information as visitors may browse seamlessly between them. They also now feature a powerful search facility that, according to Pettitt, makes it much quicker and easier for the public to find exactly what they are looking for - a common failure among websites with a large volume of information to search.

People power

A new Freedom of Information (FOI) publication scheme has been published online for initial enquiries in preparation for the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act in 2005.

Most impressive though is the ease with which non-technical authors can perform page updates, without having to go through the IT department. Pettitt comments, "With each department able to make their own updates to the websites, we have become significantly more efficient at publishing information. Updates are now happening far more frequently and bottlenecks within the IT department have been reduced. g-Serve has freed up resource enabling us to work on more challenging projects to meet our e-business targets.

Internally, user response to the system has also been very positive. Pettitt comments, "Most users find it nice and simple to use, and have needed little additional training to use it effectively."

She concludes, "System Associates completed the project on time and within budget. They demonstrated good value for money and the system does exactly what the Authority requires it to. The entire project team was extremely supportive and was consistently full of ideas. They took immediate responsibility for making things happen, and were obviously keen for the project to go well. It turned out to be a very effective partnership."

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