Contensis for Councils
Created to meet the unique needs of local government, our off-the-shelf website and CMS provide pre-built templates, content models and components that allow you to launch a modern accessible website in a fraction of the time it takes to launch a bespoke project.
Launch an accessible website in weeks, not months
Increase self service
Our pre-built templates follow tried and tested Government Digital Service principles. By adopting the GDS task-based approach, your site becomes more intuitive and user-friendly, making it easier for residents to quickly find and complete tasks.
Tap into your community
The Contensis Community Directory is designed with everyone in mind — from families seeking support, or professionals looking to connect, to service providers offering help. It’s your community's one-stop resource for discovering trusted contacts, services, and programs in their area.
Publish news on time and on brand
Keep your residents up-to-date with filterable news articles. Use our block-based text editor, Canvas, to author news articles in a similar way to apps like Notion or Google Docs. Set up custom workflows to ensure your articles are published on time and on brand.
Increase engagement at your events
Advertise upcoming events to maximise outreach and attendance. Allow users to filter events by location, dates, and category.
Location-based listings
Add postcode radius searches to pages to allow residents to quickly find the services they need in their local area.
Drive continual improvement
Gather invaluable data on the effectiveness of your content and services by adding user-friendly feedback forms to your pages.
Councillor listings
Our pre-built councillor listing allows residents to filter results by party and ward to find the councillors that represent their community.
Built-in multilingual support
Contensis allows you to quickly translate content into over 50 languages. Customisable roles and permissions ensure that editors only see content in the language relevant to them.
Alert users to service changes
Display the current status of services on specific pages or sitewide. Default alert, info, warning, and sympathy styles allow you to tailor the look of your message to suit the situation.
Surface popular tasks
Promote popular or repeat tasks on your homepage or in the global menu to reduce clicks, improve user journeys, and increase service uptake.
Your council, your way.
Apply your brand, theme it your way
Easily customise your site with your logo, brand colours, imagery, and a wide range of Google Fonts in just a few easy steps.
Build microsites and landing pages in record time
Go composable and empower marketers, content teams and other non-technical users to build on-brand and accessible microsites without developers. Use the extensive selection of out-of-the-box templates and components to create engaging, accessible microsites for your web estate.
Design Smarter with GOV.UK insights
Take advantage of a design system built to ensure consistency with GOV.UK services. Make use of existing research and insights from other service teams to avoid duplicating efforts.
Accessible and inclusive by design
Our starter site is built using the principles of GDS and WCAG 2.2 to enable your team to create well-structured, accessible content. Give all residents the best possible experience when seeking information, accessing services, and engaging with you online.
"Hertsmere Borough Council are pleased to be a part of the Contensis for Councils community. This new innovative product ensures our website meets the new accessibility standards and is user friendly for our residents, businesses and content editors."
Manage your content using a tried and trusted platform
Built on our modern and scalable CMS
As the CMS behind some of the highest traffic websites in the UK, Contensis provides the flexibility, security, and scalability needed to manage even the most complex of local authority websites.
Define your site structure using Site View
Site View provides an easy way to create and maintain your information architecture. Content strategists and teams can quickly view and understand the structure of your site. Simply attach entries to a node in Site View to assign them to a URL.
Collaborate on content
Don't take the conversation offline. Comment on fields in content entries to leave feedback or questions for colleagues. Mention another user in a comment and they'll be notified by email. You can check your comments and replies at any time from the Contensis dashboard.
Canvas editor: your content, your way
Canvas is a tool for creating beautiful long-form content. Write, paste or import long-form content that can be delivered anywhere.
Empower your editors
Content editors can easily create, manage and update content, saving valuable time and ensuring information is always current and accessible to residents
Empower your residents
Set up key content using decision trees to allow residents to resolve their issues independently and free up staff to focus on other important tasks
On the cloud
UK-based, ISO27001 certified, scalable, secure SaaS and hosting platform
Powerful search
Our search package allows you to set the filters you need for your content
Scheduled content
All content can be scheduled, allowing you to plan ahead with ease
Migrate your old content
Whether you want to cherry-pick sections or move everything in one hit, your existing content can be migrated programmatically into Contensis for Councils
Join the growing community
Free updates
We encourage the Contensis for Councils community to suggest new features. As the codebase is shared, any updates or new developments are rolled out to all projects. Everyone benefits from them - and it won’t cost you a penny!
We also make more complex bespoke sites
As a headless CMS, Contensis provides flexibility from APIs and integrations, to unique design and content modelling. With Contensis, you can build websites in a way that makes sense to you.