Shropshire council (UK) is about to launch its Umbraco LocalGov Intranet Starter Kit, an open source solution intended especially for public administrations, based on its own Intranet - itself inspired by the WordPress GovIntranet theme Beta versions of the Intranet kit will be shared on the community website of the Umbraco content management system our.umbraco.org in August.

The imminent release of the Intranet starter kit was announced by Dale Shepherd. The Digital Services Manager at Shropshire Council was one of the speakers at the Open Source Conference that took place in London on 7 July.

Shropshire Council's Digital Services team regularly looks to use and promote open source solutions as part of their work, and write about their experiences on the Project WIP blog explained Shepherd. On this web site, they have documented in detail the transition to the Umbraco CMS, he said: “All the pros, cons and our general thoughts about it are laid bare for all to see.”

According to Shepherd, Shropshire Council began looking into the Umbraco CMS at the end of 2011. The CMS came recommended by Liverpool City Council and, adds Shepherd, during testing the friendly open source community proved very active and helpful. “We realised that the strength of open source is also one of its weaknesses – an open source solution lives and dies on its community, and how easy it is to get support/advice.”

Their first Umbraco site, was launched in April 2012, and is still being added to and improved on a regular basis.

Contribute

Next to writing about its experience with Umbraco, says Shepherd, the Digital Services team aim to play a part in the Umbraco community by attending community events, and organising their own ‘Umbraco in Local Government’ umbLocalGov mini-conferences, inviting others in the public sector to share their experiences. At the most recent such event, in October last year, for example, Nottinghamshire County talked about its transition to Umbraco.

Shepherd says many other councils are very interested in using Umbraco and other open source solutions, however, they are often held back by either a lack of resources or a lack of skills. “That’s not to say that they can’t ever use it, we just need to find a way to make it easier for them, or point them towards the skills and resources available.”

That is one of the purposes of the LocalGov Digital group, Shepherd adds. “Here, local authorities from around the UK share skills and knowledge, technical or otherwise, for the benefit of all involved.”

More information:

Shropshire Council's experiences with Umbraco
LocalGov Digital
Shropshire Council Umbraco presentation at the Open Source Conference (PDF)
Open Source Conference 2015