Website Consolidation

The Department of Customer Service is leading a program of work to consolidate information on NSW Government websites into fewer websites, which will result in an improved customer experience of government information and services.

Consolidation will be carried out in partnership with agency digital officers and subject matter experts.

Key components of the whole of government website consolidation strategy and project updates will be published at www.nsw.gov.au/OneCX.

Agencies are encouraged to review the portfolio of websites that they manage. Sites that are no longer required or identified as being superfluous to agency core business should be decommissioned, with content consolidated into nsw.gov.au, an existing agency website, or archived.

The department understands that there may be pragmatic reasons for new websites by exception based on timing or functionality needs. The NSW Government Digital Channels unit can provide guidance on whether a new website could be launched, or if an existing website would provide a better customer experience.

The NSW Design System

All NSW Government websites should use the NSW Design System to ensure a consistent citizen experience. The Design Standard will provide the minimum expectations for delivering a product or service, and the supporting guidance on how to meet these minimum expectations (eg. How to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at an AA level).

Retention and Disposal of Information and Website Archiving

Agencies are expected to comply with their organisation’s retention and disposal policies when removing digital information from websites.

Where an organisation has very high risk functions, full or partial ‘snapshots’ of their websites may be necessary for accountability purposes. The frequency of snapshots should be determined by an analysis of user needs, business needs and statutory requirements.

In terms of retention of decommissioned websites, it will be dependent on the activity it relates to, and whether there is a copy of the content elsewhere.

The State Library conducts a website harvesting program, where snapshots of NSW Government websites are captured at a point in time. Following consolidation of digital information into nsw.gov.au, snapshots of NSW Government websites will be captured prior to decommissioning and archiving of the original website.

Registration and management of domain names ending in nsw.gov.au

New domain registration

No new websites should be launched on new domain names. However, new nsw.gov.au domain names may still be registered for:

• agency-managed web-based applications that are not websites

• agency-managed websites publishing content that is exempt from consolidation

• websites managed by councils under the Local Government Act.

Applications for new nsw.gov.au domains can be submitted via www.domainname.gov.au.

Domain names are subject to eligibility rules, policies and guidelines.

The NSW Government Domain Name Administrator continues to be responsible for assessing, approving, and being the first point of contact for applications for new nsw.gov.au domains.

Until further notice, the domain license fee for the registration of new domains will be met by the Department of Customer Service.

Managing domains

The Australian Government Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) manages domains on behalf of gov.au registrants, including updating name servers, changing contact details and deleting domains.

Change requests can be submitted via www.domainname.gov.au and will only be actioned following registrant approval.

The support team operates Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm AEST/AEDT, excluding public holidays in the ACT.

Other domain name extensions

NSW Government entities must not register new websites as .com, .info, .org or .net, including short-term marketing websites.

More information

DTA is responsible for the management of the gov.au second-level domain (2LD) under an agreement with .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA), the industry self-regulatory body for the .au domain space. Under this agreement the DTA provides domain administration services to Australian, state, territory and local government agencies.

DTA’s Netregistry gov.au Domain Management Portal was decommissioned on 1 February 2018.