Web content governance for Australian government websites
Most government websites slowly fall apart between projects. Pages go up. Owners change roles. The team that built the section disbands. Content drifts out of date, then becomes wrong, then becomes a problem the call centre fixes faster than the website does.
Governance is the system that stops this. Not the 30-page policy document nobody reads. The named roles, the review dates, and the escalation path that keep a website honest in the months between redesigns.
This one-pager is the minimum viable governance model for an Australian government website. Three roles, six decisions, a review cadence, and an escalation path that works.
Download the one-pager
Instructions
Use this as a starting point, not a finished governance policy. The point is to get to working roles and dates faster, not to produce paperwork.
Adapt the role names to your agency's titles. The accountability is what matters.
Pair this with a page-level review cadence. If you don't have review dates on pages, governance is just a poster.
Test the escalation path. If nobody fixes a flagged error within two business days, the path is broken.
The decision-rights table
The heart of the one-pager. Three named roles, six common decisions. No committees, no doubt about who calls what.
| Decision | Owner | Lead | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Should this page exist? | Yes | Advises | No |
| Is the information correct? | Yes | No | No |
| Is it written clearly? | No | Yes | No |
| Is it accessible? | No | Yes | Yes |
| When does it get reviewed? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Should it be retired? | Yes | Advises | No |
Content owner. Accountable for whether a page should exist and whether it's true. Usually a business owner inside the relevant team, not a comms person.
Content lead. Accountable for whether a page is well written, accessible, and aligned to the rest of the site. Usually a content designer or comms lead.
Publisher. Accountable for the page being live, linked correctly, and not breaking anything else. Usually a web team role.
The full PDF also covers a review cadence by content type, a three-step escalation path for content errors, and five tests for telling whether your current governance is real or theatre.
Want help making this work in your team?
Governance frameworks are easy to draft and hard to land. Content Co works with Australian government teams to design content systems that survive the next reorganisation, the next CMS change, and the next staff turnover. Founder Ellen Harvey led the consolidation of ACT Government websites and content reform across the majority of ACT Government directorates. Work with Content Co today.
Photo by Lauren Mancke on Unsplash.