Study suggests public bodies are paying too much for web site services

Public sector web sites costing 10 times private sector ones

Private sector businesses are spending on average 10 times less on their web site services than UK local councils, according to research from freelance jobs site PeoplePerHour.com.

A Freedom of Information Act request put to every local council in the country by PeoplePerHour.com revealed an average bill for web site services of £40,917 in 2008/2009.

This compares with an average bill for private sector businesses of £3,297 per annum.

PeoplePerHour.com CEO Xenios Thrasyvoulou said: “Compared with the average private sector web site spend, our study indicates that until now IT service suppliers to local councils, NHS Trusts and other public services have been getting a great deal at the taxpayers’ expense.”

Asked if the public sector web sites were being ripped off, Thrasyvoulou said: "Yes – totally. Look at those web sites. They're important web sites, but they're not complicated, they're not transactional. The content on them is pretty static and so they shouldn't cost any more.

"Additionally, if you look at the amount of traffic on the web sites, it's very low, meaning that the cost per user is considerably higher than the private sector equivalent."

This disparity reflects the way technology is procured in the public sector, according to Thrasyvoulou: "Someone signs off a piece of paper that they've been signing off for the last five years without thinking that things may have changed and that it can be done more cheaply."

PeoplePerHour.com submitted the Freedom of Information request to determine local councils’ spend on external contractors and agencies for web site development and maintenance services.

To ascertain what private sector business spends, PeoplePerHour.com polled its 56,000 plus members.

Only 70 per cent of public sector organisations responded to PeoplePerHour.com's Freedom of Information Act request.