Demystifying The LocalGov Drupal Platform

Many local authorities have flocked to the Drupal platform to build out their council website over the last ten years - around 72 active and mostly on Drupal 7 and 9. The issue comes from everybody doing it slightly differently as they worked with an agency and came up with their own brand and style.

The LocalGov Drupal project aims to change this by “being a publicly owned asset that delivers a better digital experience for citizens, improves service outcomes, and saves money”. This provides the basics for free, and allows a council to spend their money on the good stuff. It’s estimated that using LocalGov Drupal will?reduce the cost of building a new council website by up to 80%?(depending on the extras a council wishes to add) - this is probably more for the smaller councils with minimal basic content publishing requirements.

So how do you get access to the platform to test the LocalGov Drupal system, and what functionality is included for free as standard?

In this guide, we provide an overview of the LocalGov Drupal platform, including the set-up process, features and functionality and what’s missing that you need to add yourself.

Getting set-up

The codebase is available from?GitHub?and the easiest way to install it locally to trial it is through the command line which downloads the codebase ready to roll.

$ composer create-project localgovdrupal/localgov-project MY_COUNCIL_NAME

Spinning up a local development environment using?Lando?is supported as standard in the LocalGov Drupal repository, I used the alternative?DDEV, which worked equally well because I already had it installed.

Set-up is completed through the web browser wizard by selecting the “LocalGov” installation profile when presented with the choices. Within minutes you’re greeted with an empty council website waiting for your first move.

What first?

Those new to the Drupal CMS may wish to familiarise themselves with the?default user guide?linked from the page - but the sheer amount of content there might be a little overwhelming!

The main purpose of a council website is to publish information for its citizens and reduce the amount of inbound email and phone calls by streamlining efficiencies through embracing an online self-service function to empower its users.?

The typical site information architecture is structured into groups of service content that are delivered in a variety of styles.

The initial distribution install activates three basic definitions of content that can be assembled into a basic council site. There’s a selection of other types available by enabling the additional modules to extend the platform.

?? To read more about the individual types of content pages available, sub-sites, microsites and the tools included with the platform check out the Ixis website Demystifying The LocalGov Drupal Platform.