Government to shut hundreds of its websites

Trying to save money

11 January 2007 14:27 GMT / By Amber Maitland

The government is shutting down most of its websites in an effort to reduce the cost of maintaining them, and to make information easier to find.

Whitehall will shut down at least 551 websites, 90 of which have already been closed. Out of a total of 951 central government websites, only 26 are definitely going to be kept, although another 374 are going to be evaluated to see whether they should be kept or binned.

The closures will save an estimated £9 million.

Important information from the closed websites will be transferred to the “super websites” of Directgov and Business Link, and consolidated into various branches.

There will also be a site for each government department and a few other special cases, like NHS Direct.

“We are dealing decisively with the proliferation of government websites – getting rid of more than 500 – and we are ensuring that the quality of our services will not be affected by these changes”, Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden said at a conference.

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Software, Online, Websites