Sheffield City Council’s website has been named the fastest performing local authority site, as 64% of town hall sites fail speed tests.

Analysis of 227 council websites by netEvidence found 145 failed to open in under half a second, with one London Borough’s website taking over 30 seconds to respond.

Thanks to outsourcing practices, experts warned senior councillors now lack any real time visibility into how their online services are performing.

One London borough’s website took over 30 seconds to open, research found.

English unitary councils came bottom of the performance league with 77% of websites taking over half a second to respond.

Coming out top, Sheffield’s site was found to have an average response time of 0.04 seconds.

CEO of netEvidence, Richard Thomas, said: ‘Websites provide a vital part of the services that councils deliver to residents and local businesses. If they can deliver a fast and efficient service via the web, councils can minimise enquiries to call centres and thus save considerable costs.

‘Ultimately, the main issue remains that without visibility, senior council members have no way to judge if their services are underperforming. And, if and when new investments are made, they often have no way of telling if any improvements have been achieved.’