Unloved websites to be culled by NSW government

NSW government websites that have gone unclicked and unloved for years in the darkest reaches of cyberspace are to be culled.

NSW Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello. Picture: AAP

Clunky, unsightly, and in many cases unworthy, they are the ­legion of NSW government websites that have gone unclicked and unloved for years in the darkest reaches of cyberspace.

Now, the government is taking a broom to these relics. Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello is to embark on a slash-and-burn campaign to ­excise more than 500 government-owned websites that for too long have purported to serve some sort of use to the community.

Expensive to operate, displeasing to navigate, Mr Dominello says at least two thirds of the government’s 750 websites have been marked for oblivion.

“We’re spending a fortune on these things,” he said. Modelling conducted for Mr Dominello’s department estimates $10m in savings can be made each year once the cleanout proceeds — a conservative estimate based on $20,000 per website for operational expenditure.

Over a decade of forward estimate, this would amount to several primary schools, hospital equipment and untold other avenues of more worthy spending, he said. But his efforts to bring these hundreds of websites to an end is not without controversy.

While some websites, such as that of the Opera House or the NSW Supreme Court, will likely be quarantined, there are others already destined for doom.

“There will be resistance in middle management, from people who want to protect their ­babies,” said Mr Dominello, architect of this bloodless coup. “But this is about putting the people of our state first. We’ve ­designed customer services so we look at the customer experience, not the public service experience.”

Mr Dominello was guarded about which websites would go, but he was happy to identify the webpage of the Long Service Corporation, a little-known agency responsible for managing long service leave for builders and contract cleaners.

“What is the justification for that having an independent, standalone website?” he asked.

Another website, which tells users if their vehicle is E10 fuel compatible, is also unlikely to survive.

“It damages the whole brand,” he added.

The hope is that by improving the web experience and consolidating the dead weight, the end-user will feel slightly more inclined to interact with the government, which will relaunch its main website at the end of this month.

The intention is to consolidate information about drought relief, bushfire assistance, and births, deaths and marriages all on the one page, a model that borrows heavily from a similar one-stop experience used in Britain.