£84k 'wasted' on council website

SURREY County Council is under fire after the cost of its website – £84,068 – was revealed by a Freedom of Information request.

The figure includes the cost of maintaining, supporting and hosting the necessary databases, running traffic information and £48,000 worth of recruitment.

ONLINE: Surrey County Council's website costs taxpayers £84,000 a year, not including staffing costs
Jamie Barr-Byford, Banstead student: "Its disgraceful that they are spending so much money when it could have been put to more use, something more useful like clearing up parks or road maintenance."
Nikki Allan, Reigate: "This website could be run a lot cheaper."
Pam Sinnathurai, Holmesdale Road retailer: "It's worrying that the people in charge are spending money without our knowledge of where it's going to."
Nikki Allan, Reigate: "This website could be run a lot cheaper."
Pam Sinnathurai, Holmesdale Road retailer: "It's worrying that the people in charge are spending money without our knowledge of where it's going to."

And this figure does not include the cost of staff to support the website, which was designed in-house.

The expenditure has been blasted by Emma Boon, campaign manager at the Taxpayers Alliance which campaigns for responsible public spending.

She told the Mirror: "It's outrageous that Surrey County Council is spending so much on the design and maintenance of their website.

"Those in charge must plan more carefully so they don't have to overhaul their website every couple of years, and they should also be shopping around for the best deal.

"If contracts are not negotiated carefully in the first place, then councils could be tied into paying more than the going rate for a service, with taxpayers picking up the bill."

Out on the streets of Reigate, the Mirror found residents were equally shocked by the cost of the site.

Basset Drive, Reigate resident and student Pritesh Pankhania was appalled by the cost, saying it was a waste of money and adding: "It's a stupid amount of money to waste away. Is this website even using the full £85,000?"

And Pat Baker, from Nailsworth Crescent, Merstham, added: "It's an extortionate amount of money to spendon a website. It's a disgrace."

Surrey County Council's website is hosted by the council's own in-house web team, and between April 1 2009 and March 31 2010, there were 4,187,359 visitors to the site, with a total of 8,315 pages of information. The council uses third-party tools to test and maintain the performance of the website, for example to check links, at a cost of £20,573 last year.

A spokesman for the council was unavailable to comment.