Dundee City Council is hoping to persuade more people to use its website when they need help or are paying bills.
Around 7,000 people visit the website every day and transactions worth more than £1 million per month are processed through it.
But council chiefs reckon they can get even more users if they make the system as secure and easy to use as possible.
They are also hoping that online services can help them cut costs as they are cheaper to run than telephone helplines or face-to-face contact with the public.
A report says that a project group chaired by chief executive David Dorward has decided that enhancing web-based services is the way to go, not least because it is “the most cost-effective” communications channel.
Ged Bell, the council’s head of IT, said his division had already made a lot of information available online, along with application forms and various financial transactions.
“The website is continually being improved and developed. These major enhancements make it easier for customers to navigate the website and easier for departmental website staff to update content.”
He said that further developing the website has the potential to be more efficient.
“However, this can only happen if demand is reduced for the more expensive, existing face-to-face and telephone channels.”
The IT division has developed its own secure authentication system to allow people to use the website with confidence.
Mr Bell admitted that at the moment public satisfaction with the website was below the levels recorded for face-to-face and telephone assistance.
He said: “This satisfaction level disparity is common across local government websites.However, clear, effective action and responses must be put in place to address all negative website comment.
“New services available on the website will need to be communicated, advertised and promoted.”
The range of services the council wants to see available online includes the distribution of council tax bill reminders, housing benefit notifications and uploading supporting evidence for benefit claims.
Social work billing, the community care portal, housing lettings, housing repairs, education clothing grants, free school meals applications, pest control, bulky uplifts and national entitlement card applications are also on the list.
The council has set a target of increasing use of its website by 20% each year.
It plans to promote its services by giving prominence to the website address and the council’s email address in all its published materials, and using its vehicles and even some employees’ work clothes to advertise them too.
Automated messages heard by callers should also encourage them to use the website and frontline staff will be instructed to tell visitors that it is the preferred means of supplying information.
The website or email may even become the only way for businesses to carry out transactions with the council.