Being clear: an initial desktop review of LA EP service websites

Today we launch our ‘Being Clear’ report, which is the outcome of a project we have undertaken to explore to what extent EP services are achieving the basics of a ‘good’ web presence.

Why review LA EP service websites

Increasingly Local Authority Educational Psychology (LA EP) services are using the internet to communicate with people. To date, and to the best of our knowledge, there has been no broad exploration of LA EP service websites, how these sites are organised, and the information provided on them for parents, carers and education staff.

The aim of this project was to explore features of these webpages, particularly focusing on ease of recognition and access.

Key findings

1. The majority, though not all, EP services have a specific and dedicated web presence
2. 55% of EP services have their web presence as part of the main LA website
3. Only half of EP service sites make it clear that you are ’in the right place’
4. It was usually much clearer that we were looking at information about a specific EP service when the web pages were part of the main LA website
5. Two thirds of services with a web presence have contact information on their main landing page…
6. …of those services that did not have contact information on their main landing page, nearly three quarters had none within one click
7. The type of service contact information shared with people varied
8. The majority of EP services do not share any information about who leads or manages their service

Actions you might take to enhance LA EP service websites

Our report explores these considerations in greater depth. These are our broad suggestions to begin to make positive changes.

Some of these considerations might seem obvious or perhaps too basic, however we have focused on these basics because it became apparent that many EP services aren’t doing these things on their websites or web pages.

1. Use the questions we asked throughout our review of your own EPS website
2. Make sure you have a web presence – 4% of our sample did not
3. Ensure it is clear to people visiting your webpages that they are ‘in the right place’
4. Have contact information easily visible and accessible across your webpages
   • Consider the impact of not providing contact information, particularly with reference to ‘designing good government services’
5. Consider providing people with information about who leads the service, and how they can be contacted.

We are under no illusion as to how tricky implementing some of the changes suggested in our report, might be, for some EP services. We think that this report will enable EP services to begin to have informed conversations with LA IT or Digital teams, to get the basics right. 

We’d encourage you to read the full report and we’d be very keen to hear feedback.

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If you’re looking to improve how accessible your web content is, we’re running an introductory webinar on 10th March that will equip you with some of the skills to begin doing this.

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