70% of councils provide a good or very good parking service online, according to a new Socitm survey.
The first of Socitm’s new Better Connected surveys reveals that the majority of councils tested handle the task ‘pay parking fine’ well, with nearly 70% achieving three or four stars on a scale of one to four.
This is similar to the 72% that achieved the Better Connected ‘standard’ (equivalent to three or four stars), when the task was last tested in 2013.
The task is, however, more difficult this year because there is now an ‘essential question’ that must be answered correctly before a service can get 3 or 4 stars, and the survey also marks down any services that offer information that is clearly not up to date.
According to Socitm, councils that scored lower marks in this task tended to be weak in just one or two key areas; failing, for example, to match terminology on the physical parking ticket with that on the payment form, or making it difficult to navigate to information about discounts and appeals.
Congratulating those councils who were successful in the parking service survey, Martin Ferguson, Socitm’s director of policy and research, said: ‘The service provided by the best performers is really excellent. By making Better Connected results and commentary more accessible through our new publishing platform we are enabling the sharing of digital expertise that is so vital for the sector.'
