The majority of UK government and public service websites have an alarmingly high number of errors according to a recent survey* by Business2www.

The survey cites the Inland Revenue as the worst offender, with over 14,500 errors on its site. Close on its heels are the Department of Health (12,313) and HM Treasury (10,145). The best performing site is the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency with 511 errors — still higher than generally acceptable for most commercial sites.

The automated test run by B2W checked 46 leading government, political and public service sites. The survey’s conclusions are likely to be an embarrassment to Tony Blair’s government which has made much of its commitment to making Britain the number one e-commerce country in Europe. Of the sites tested, over half were found to have a significant number of errors. Worse still for the government is the fact that many of these agencies are expected to set an example as well as set and maintain standards applied to the websites of UK-based companies.

The survey also points out that millions of taxpayers’ money has been used to build and maintain these sites. "This raises questions about cost effectiveness and use of funds," says Philip Sheldon, managing director of B2W. "To be frank, too many of these sites simply don't work. These sites may be large and complex but it is simply unacceptable for over 50% of the sites we tested to have more than 500 identified avoidable site errors — errors which are likely to be impacting adversely on website performance."

Government, political and public services websites are large — about seven times the size of the average UK FTSE 100 corporate website. Until the advent of automated testing software, it was difficult as well as costly and time consuming to text such large sites for simple and complex errors.

"Although there are some notable exceptions — NHS Direct for one — there is clearly little, if any, attention being paid to performance quality standards or testing," comments Mr Sheldon.

* Public Service Website League Table: 46 leading UK government, political and public service sites published by Business2www.