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Somerset Digital Channel Roadmap
This roadmap is for anyone who needs to understand current and future developments of the Somerset Digital Channel
The Somerset Council digital transformation offer comprises various product groups, each with distinct objectives.
This roadmap shows what we are working on and what we plan to do between May and September 2026
Some things on the roadmap might change – the purpose is to tell you what is coming up and help service teams prepare and plan their own work.
This is not a list of every item. We have an internal Planner board for more details on our plans and day-to-day activities.
Here are the overall objectives for somerset.gov.uk in 2026
Keep our websites running well
Regularly check and update our information to make sure it is correct, accessible, and easy to understand for users with varying levels of digital skills and additional needs
Ensure our forms and transactions are working well, are easy to find, and are accessible across devices, assistive technologies, and user capabilities
Make our website better
Reduce old documents and convert them into accessible, user-friendly formats
Improve the advice and help we give online so it is inclusive and easy to understand
Make it easier to use our website and find important pages, ensuring navigation works for users with a range of abilities.
Work more efficiently
Make our back-office CRM easier to update so that changes can happen faster
Make it easier to use our website and find important pages, ensuring navigation works for users with a range of abilities.
Use AI and automation to assist us with content, forms, and building new features while ensuring outputs remainaccurate, inclusive, and accessible
Support important projects
Help our services align, and make sure this is updated online
Help improve the services that people need in Somerset, ensuring improvements are inclusive and do not exclude those with limited digital access or skills
This roadmap is underpinned by Somerset Council’s commitment to Digital Inclusion and Accessibility, ensuring that all residents can access, understand, and benefit from digital services, regardless of their skills, access, or circumstances.
Information, advice and guidance
Helping people understand what the Somerset Council offers and how to use those services in an accessible, inclusive, and user-centred way.Products include our websites, online forms, and the information used by Customer Services.
The goals are to:
Keep information, advice and guidance up to date
Improve the most important areas of existing content to meet accessibility standards and user needs
Remove anything that is no longer useful
Help update and improve content for services that are changing, ensuring all new content is accessible and inclusive by design
These are the specific things we are working on.
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Recently completed
Improved readability, spelling, grammar and fixed broken links on over 1900 pages. Our Silktide content score has risen from 72% to 90% since January 2024, and is up 4% in the last 4 months.
Supported our finance colleagues with annual fee updates.
Redesigned and decommissioned legacy information, such as revenues, benefits and licensing.
Reviewed and actioned over 444 pieces of customer feedback and updated over 1800 web pages as part of service content maintenance and feedback in 2026.
Improved the structure of the school admission and housing pages
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Working on now
Redesigning our customer content journeys to match devolved services
Supporting the co-production of content for our Somerset Local Offer
Redesigning and simplifying the Blue Badge Process
Improving the information, advice and guidance of the top services
Performing content checks on 14 of our Evergreen Microsites
Reviewing content for our Climate and Sustainability, and Libraries section
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Exploring or working on next
Supporting the review and content redesign of our frontend services
Content support for the development of a flooding microsite
Continuing with the alignment of content to reflect our changing services, such as revenues and benefits
Content support for the microsite redesign for Somerset Trends and Somerset Intelligence
Helping people find and use services or information, including those with low digital confidence or limited access. It includes tools like service finders, directories, contact options, and ways to access places like libraries and car parks.
The goals are to:
Give people useful and relevant information about the services available to them
Signpost to other organisations and services, including community-based digital support and assisted digital services
Improve the quality and access to our data to understand and respond to digital exclusion
These are the specific things we are working on:
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Recently completed
Refreshed the library events directory.
Created templates and tools to help with customer engagement on key pages, such as crisis support, Climate, water and nature, and Local Nature Recovery Strategy.
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Working on now
Further work to improve the accessibility of our digital channels
Continuing to move unstructured and inaccessible information, advice, guidance and data into better formats
Improving the user journeys of our top 100 services
Improving our Directory templates so the public and internal stakeholders find them easier and more accessible to navigate
Developing or decommissioning user journeys to reflect service alignment or devolution
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Exploring or working on next
Improving how customers navigate somerset.gov.uk via the search function and menus
Reviewing key user journeys in response to customer feedback, such as SEND Local Offer, Report Anti-Social Behaviour, and Contact Us
Transactional services
Help users do things like report an issue, apply for something, make a payment, or book something, with accessible and supported digital pathways
The goals for these products are to:
Keep our digital services running smoothly
Offer more services online without compromising the needs of those who do not have digital access
Make our transactional services easier to use, accessible, and up to standard
Phase out old systems by rebuilding or redesigning services to fit our current platforms
These are the specific things we are working on:
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Recently completed
Support the Revenues and Benefits team in the consolidation of their systems
Failed submissions to the Highways system are now captured along with any uploaded photos, ensuring nothing is lost. A new automated endpoint then runs hourly to retry those cases, so anything missed during downtime or system issues is pushed through and resolved. We’ve also added a profanity filter to redact inappropriate language in free text fields and form has also been redesigned to better align with our standard patterns, splitting content across clearer steps to make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate.
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Working on now
Optimising transactions for our top 100 services
Redevelop the Blue Badge process in-house
Creating a single pipeline for the design, development and management of customer-facing transactions
Ongoing digitisation of non-electronic forms and transactions
Improving the accessibility of our transactions by updating any that do not meet WCAG guidelines
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Exploring or working on next
Continued consolidation and alignment of transactions such as Anti-Social Behaviour
Create a process and feature to enable residents to ‘Check status of Penalty Charge Notice (PCN)’
Redesign the Somerset Emergency Community Contacts journey and form
Developing or decommissioning transactions to reflect service alignment or devolution
Platform
Products that support how we publish content and how users access and use services in an accessible and inclusive way. It covers things like our content management system, online services, navigation design, and search tools.
The goals for these products are to:
Make the Somerset Digital Channel easier to manage and reuse, while embedding accessibility into all components and patterns(e.g. content system, design patterns, components) so future updates are quicker and more efficient
Phase out old systems by rebuilding or redesigning services to fit accessible, modern platforms
Look into modern technologies that support accessibility, inclusion, and long-term sustainability
These are the specific things we are working on:
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Recently completed
Created and continuously applied UI and UX design standards to ensure a consistently good user experience
Refreshed certain microsite components so we can adjust the look and feel, according to audience (e.g., curved edges, addition of icons, or colour)
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Working on now
Conducting proof-of-concept work to build a closer relationship between our customer frontend and our back office systems using Power Automate and other Microsoft tools
Rebuilding our directory template.
Updating our code frameworks to comply with WCAG 2.2 requirements
Exploring ways to improve the speed and performance of our Core website
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Exploring or working on next
Continuously modernising our website technologies and frameworks (for example, GOV.UK Frontend)
Create a new component that can handle long digital documents, which were previously added as PDF’s
Working with our GIS Team to optimise the customer-facing user experience of our maps and geolocation data
Other websites and initiatives
Major transformation projects and digital services that are designed to reach and support all users, including those who are harder to engage or digitally excluded. These include campaign sites, services aimed at changing behaviour, and tools designed to reach people who are harder to engage.
The goals for these products are to:
Design and build better digital experiences that are inclusive, accessible, and user-centred
Cut down on outdated systems and reduce long-term costs by removing parts of our digital channel that are no longer needed
Save money by reducing the number of websites built and hosted externally
Create more consistent and accessible user journeys across all digital services
These are the specific things we are working on:
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Recently completed
Decommissioned the FCDI site so it can be taken over by a third-party
Adjusted the layout of Local Offer menus to streamline customer entry points by age range.
Creation of a new microsite for Somerset Local Community Networks, so the service can self-upload meetings and agendas without getting lost in the core site
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Working on now
Designing, developing or decommissioning digital services in response to service alignment and devolution.
Launch a new Microsite for Natural Tourism in Somerset (previously ex-district “Visit” and Climate websites)
Continuing to co-produce our Local Offer with the Somerset Parent Carer Forum and the SEND Service
Launch the Leaving Care Local Offer into our Evergreen microsite offer
Exploring opportunities through WeChangeAI and the provision of data to create capacity, efficiencies and cost savings
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Exploring or working on next
Support the Communication team with the Working in Social Care recruitment campaign
Rebuilding or retiring more of our legacy web estate
Rebuild the microsites for Somerset Prepared, Somerset Trends, and Somerset Intelligence
