Government to scrap 75% of its websites
A Cabinet Office review launched today aims to identify which 75 % of the government's current 820 websites are to be closed by September.
The drive, which will save millions of pounds, has been announced after the COI found that £94m of taxpayer funding was spent setting up or maintaining just 46 websites in the last year alone, with a further £32m on staff.
Surviving services will then be required to slash costs by up to 50% by sharing resources and infrastructure.
The COI found that the most expensive government site is uktradeinvest.gov.uk, an export information service costing £11.78 per visit. Business Link costs £2.15 per visit.
Francis Maude who is responsible for IT across government said of the cuts: "The days of 'vanity' sites are over. It is not good enough to have websites which do not deliver the high quality services which people expect and deserve.
"That is why we will take tough action to get rid of those which are not up to the job and do not offer good value for money and introduce strict guidelines for those that remain."
New measures will now mean that no new websites will be permitted without the approval of an efficiency board run by the Cabinet Office and the Treasury.