The brief

For grassroots government, moving to a .gov.uk domain is a critical step in achieving better cyber security and good digital practices. However, in 2023 only 1,800 of the >11,000 parish and town councils in England were using a .gov.uk domain. Government Digital Services (GDS) wanted to understand why.

CMC was asked to investigate the barriers to the use of the .gov.uk domain, and to create and trial a new scalable way for this sector to engage with .gov.uk domains.

Following extensive user research and stakeholder engagement, and based on our recommendations, CMC was asked to design and implement the Parish Council Domains Helper Service (PCDHS). This would provide tailored, practical support and guidance to clerks and councillors, as well as access to government funding to offset the costs of a move to a .gov.uk domain.

In FY 24/25, our target was to help 1,000 parish councils to move to a .gov.uk domain via the PCDHS and enable access to the funding provided to help with any initial outlay.

A multi-disciplined team

For this engagement, CMC deployed a small multi-disciplined team able to support a wide range of tasks. The team encompassed capabilities including user research, business analysis, service design, delivery management, data analysis and reporting, change, communications management and stakeholder engagement. This ensured no tasks were siloed, reduced resource dependencies and enabled us to respond flexibly to changing demands and requirements throughout the duration of the contract.

Iterative and agile

We adopted an agile approach to service design, delivery and management of the PCDHS, responding to user feedback throughout to continually iterative and improve the service. This allowed us to create a truly user-centric service, where the needs of our users were placed at the heart of delivery. This ensured the service could meet and support each council’s capacity and ability to change.

Engagement and relationship management

The stakeholder landscape was extensive, encompassing thousands of councils across the whole of England, as well as numerous representative bodies and domain registrars who were instrumental in providing the service. As there were no channels in place to reach the parish councils individually, our experienced communications and engagement specialists focused on developing strong relationships with national and regional representative bodies, and building on their existing channels. Creating a comprehensive customer journey, and using personas and empathy mapping to develop a deep understanding of the motivations and behaviours of our users, we mapped these on a stakeholder engagement canvas, identifying what each might ‘think, feel, do, say’ and understanding common interests and needs. This helped us design meaningful activities to raise awareness, drive action and increase engagement. Our compelling communications were targeted to alleviate pain points and frustrations, and demonstrate the benefits of moving to .gov.uk domains. Understanding this unique audience, we created an informal look and feel to our communications and used everyday analogies to clearly explain complex and technical information. Throughout our engagement we delivered 163 sessions for 1,032 councils, sent 3,702 emails and received 2,767.

A data driven approach

Data collection, monitoring and reporting was fundamental to managing service delivery. We developed a master tracker which recorded all aspects of PCDHS delivery, including quality metrics. We introduced automation to streamline administrative processes and reporting.  A live dashboard along with compelling data visualisations provided an overview of progress and forecasted uptake, as well as enabling drilldown to more detailed views. This enabled data-based decisions to be made to optimise service delivery and sustain momentum. It also supported us to design communication campaigns around funding availability which in turn drove demand for the service.

Additional value

Our automated dashboard was hailed as an exemplar within GDS and has since been deployed across other projects in the GDS portfolio, providing a dynamic understanding of progress. We worked with representative bodies and other bodies to strengthen best practice guidance around a parish council’s responsibilities towards accessibility, cybersecurity and IT good practices, ensuring these essential best cyber practices become embedded.

We also took on grant funding management, which was originally out of scope, as the lack of resource available to manage it within GDS would impact on service delivery. Our automation of processes and reporting was instrumental in reducing effort and releasing time to enable us to take on the additional work.

The difference we made

We accelerated the number of parish councils moving to a gov.uk domain by nearly 600% compared to previous years, exceeding our targets by c.10%.

We supported the improvement of broader digital health by encouraging the move to professional email setups and a more secure web presence:

• 1,037 websites were created on a .gov.uk domain
• > 8,750 .gov.uk email addresses were set up, largely replacing free personal email accounts

We met our target of 1,000 parish councils moving to a .gov.uk domain 66 days ahead of schedule.

By the end of the assignment, we had exceeded the target by 295 councils – nearly 30%.

Through the design and delivery of the PCDHS, CMC has built capability and momentum that will continue to drive the move to .gov.uk domains at a higher rate.

But don’t just take our word for it – see what our client has to say below.