Building Successful eGovernment Websites: The Case of Manchester City Council

Traditionally municipalities have been facing two major challenges: administration of a wide range of services and management of a large number of interactions from citizens. Given the potentials of computer networks and in particular the Internet, offering local government services through eGovernment websites has become an area of high interest for an increasing number of municipalities across the globe. Furthermore, those that have already implemented such services continuously look for possible improvements and optimisations to further their benefits. On the other hand, considering the existence of a range of challenges and difficulties associated with eGovernment initiatives, a large number of these projects fail to meet their initial design goals and more importantly do not meet citizens' expectations. In such a setting, it is useful to analyse successful cases and incorporate their key success factors. In 2008, Manchester City Council was recognised as the best provider of eGovernment services in the UK. Through their eGovernment website, the council provides over 1,100 services to more than 450,000 citizens. This research provides a discussion on a number of key success factors which made this achievement possible.