Political composition map now live

I'm pleased to announce a new feature on LocalGov.co.uk.

Colleagues working on the Municipal Year Book have used Google Maps technology to plot a political composition map of Britain. This is a free service available to site registrants... you just have to log in before your can use the map.

Every local authority is plotted on the map and a colour assigned, depending on the political composition of that council. Clicking on the council icon will reveal the political composition in detail.


We have also given users the option to filter the results by political party and compare two parties at a time. Given that we are trying to track political composition in local councils, a filter is provided for 'no overall control' and for the other political organisations which may hold power at the local level.

The data is also provided in tabular form for site subscribers.

I hope you find this new feature of use... you can find it here.

It is already finding fans in our office, particularly for those seeking a quick reference guide to a particular council's political composition.

If you have any feedback on this feature, please email me.

Keeping tabs on traffic

When you start working on websites, traffic becomes a key feature of you day-to-day.

Initially, this is an obsession with page views… how many ‘hits’ a piece of content gets.

You then dig a little deeper (How many people are watching video content, and for how long?, for example) before becoming fully immersed in the full range of metrics on offer and then losing sight of what they are actually telling you about your website’s performance.

I must confess that I’m interested in the referring traffic… that is, finding out which sites on the ‘Web are directing traffic users to our content.

This has thrown up some interesting results… a Mercedes owners club blog linking to a story on proportional parking charges for cars with higher emissions, for example.

A pleasant surprise this week though has been my colleague Heather Jameson’s profile article on Bala Mahendran, chief executive of Basildon Borough Council.

Mr Mahendran is from Sri Lanka and news site infolanka.com picked up on the story and pushed nearly 1,500 visitors our way on Wednesday afternoon this week.

Nice to see UK local government having international appeal.

LocalGov on YouTube

LocalGov.co.uk now has a YouTube channel where you will be able to view the entire back catalogue of video content produced for the site.

This includes the regular viewpoints produced by editor of the MJ Michael Burton, alongside our news reports, interviews and content produced with our partners including Steria and IBM.

YouTube brings our content to a wider audience and provides an accessible viewing platform for our videos.

You can view the channel at http://uk.youtube.com/user/LocalGov and subscribe to keep up to date with new content as it is produced for the site.

We will continue to develop this page alongside other enhancements of our video content due later in the year.

Happy viewing!

Localgov.co.uk update

Just a quick note to wish all Localgov.co.uk users a happy new year and let you know that the site redesign is now complete. Should you find any errant pages that have not been switched over to the new look, please e-mail me the URL.

The work doesn’t stop there, though. We are currently working on a number of new initiatives and improvements that will be going live in the coming weeks.

Watch this space!

Regards,

Matt.