Information and data regarding the new SG website: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/01819
Date received: 8 August 2017
Date responded: 29 August 2017

Information requested

1. The total cost of developing the new Scottish Government website?

2. The upkeep cost for both the old and the new website in 2015/16 and 2016/17 if available?

3. The number of staff that worked on the development of the new website and the number of staff required to maintain the new website?

4. When the Scottish Government intends to move all of its content over to the new website and cease creating new contents on its old website?

5. When it was envisioned in the original business case for the new website that all functions would move to the new website and cease creating content on the old website

6. When the original business case for a new Scottish Government website was first submitted and if it would be possible for a copy of it to be attached to the FOI response.

7. How long the new website has been in the beta stage?

8. When the Scottish Government intends to move the new website off the beta stage?

Response

1. Development costs for the new website were released under a previous FOI response FOI/16/01203 - /publications/foi-16-01203. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again.

2. The upkeep costs for the old site, gov.scot are £79,125 ex VAT per year which includes fully managed hosting, security monitoring and domains. The running costs for the new site, beta.gov.scot are £56,066 ex VAT per year which includes hosting, security and domains.

3. The development of the new website it is one of a number of projects that have been managed and tracked collectively via a shared publishing platform. This is currently used by mygov.scot, beta.gov.scot and the development of common processes and technologies to support future digital services. Staff have worked across all three areas as part of their normal duties and time on each project was not recorded.

4. Not all content will be moved across to the new website. There is a phased approach to transition involving identification of content suitable for archiving. No updates are made to topic content on the old once replacement topic and policy content has been completed on the new site. Once all topic and policy content is transitioned to the new site, the old one will cease. Content which is not transitioned to the new site will continue to be available in the National Library of Scotland (NLS) web archive. NLS archive public sector websites for the public record and old versions of the site can be viewed via http://www.gov.scot/archive.

5. Section 8 of the Business Case and Implementation Plan lays out the Implementation Plan Timeline. See attached annex for a copy of the Business Case and Implementation Plan.

6. The business case for a new Scottish Government website was finalised on 23 July 2014. See attached annex for a copy of the Business Case and Implementation Plan.

7. Beta.gov.scot went live on 12 July 2016.

8. The project to transition content across to the new site is broadly in line with the transition plan detailed in the Business Case and Implementation Plan. See attached annex for a copy of the Business Case and Implementation Plan.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses

FOI-17-01819-ANNEX-Web Transformation-Project-Business-Case -information.pdf

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34 page PDF

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491.7 kB