Planning content

Plan what should and should not be published on our website

On the page

What to publish on our website
What should not be published
Publishing content on a new website
URLs

What to publish on our website

All content published on our website must have a clear user need backed up with evidence.

Content should be published either:

as guidance to help users complete a transaction with us or central government
to help users understand what we are doing

Content that does not do one of these things should not be published.

What should not be published

The following types of content should not be published on notinghamshire.gov.uk:

Content that repeats or significantly overlaps with existing content.
Advertising for commercial purposes.
Intranet or other services exclusively for staff.
information or advice that is not specific to us and can be provided by other organisations or charities, for example housing advice from Shelter .
Content that exists on external sites, like GOV.UK or UK laws on legislation.gov.uk.
Information from partner sites exempt.

Publishing content on a new website

You need to get approval from the Communications and Marketing team before you create or commission any new website or purchase public-facing domain.

This approval is known as getting an ‘exemption’ and applies to both 'gov.uk' and non-government domains, like 'org.uk', 'co.uk' or '.com'.

How to request an exemption

Apply for an exemption from the Communications and Marketing team.

You’ll need to:

explain why your users’ needs cannot be met on any of our existing websites, providing supporting evidence
confirm what domain name you plan to use
confirm that your service director and Senior Communications and Marketing Business Partner has given their approval.

Do not begin procurement of an external website until your exemption is confirmed.

If you get an exemption

Your website must also:

not duplicate or compete with existing content across any of our existing websites
have appropriate journeys to and from nottinghamshire.gov.uk for relevant content
limit its scope to what was agreed for the exemption

You must also make sure your website meets:

any conditions set as part of the exemption - for example, being assessed against the Service Standard
minimum Cyber Security Standard
accessibility requirements for public sector websites
privacy and data protection legislation requirements, if you’re collecting personal information from users
cookie compliance requirements

Our digital colleagues in the Communications and Marketing team will carry out a full review of your website after you get your exemption and not long after the website is launched to make sure it still meets the conditions agreed.

If you do not meet the set out conditions after launch, Communications and Marketing team will bare no responsibility for the usability, readability and accessibility of the website.

Digital accessibility

All public sector websites must meet accessibility regulations, even if they've been outsourced to an external supplier. This includes both public facing websites and websites used only by staff, like our Intranet or SharePoint sites.

You are responsible for ensuring the accessibility of any new website you create or commission.

Read more on Digital accessibility laws.

If you do not get an exemption

You cannot commission a new website if you do not get an exemption.

If you already had commissioned a new website before you applied and you are not granted an exemption, you’ll need to work with Communications and Marketing team to shut it down and migrate content to nottinghamshire.gov.uk where appropriate.

Exemptions can be revoked. If this happens, you may also work with the Communications and Marketing team to migrate content to nottinghamshire.gov.uk.

Migrate content and close your website

The steps to close your website are:

Do a content audit - work with the our content design specialist in the Communications and Marketing team to understand where content should go on nottinghamshire.gov.uk, and whether it duplicates existing content on the website.
Agree a date to decommission the website with Communications and Marketing team, based on the content audit.
Migrate content to nottinghamshire.gov.uk - work with the Communications and Marketing content design team to migrate relevant content to nottinghamshire.gov.uk, and ensure that website redirects to nottinghamshire.gov.uk are set up for the day of website closure.

URLs

URLs (web addresses) are designed to follow a consistent, predictable, user-friendly format.

Most URLs are generated automatically when a page is created in our website's content management system. However, short or ‘friendly’ URLs are sometimes created for promotional purposes. If you need a short URL, you need to: