Local authorities could be spending more than 23 times the amount necessary for dealing with customer enquiries due to poor website performance.

A briefing from Socitm said that visitors are often unable to find what they are looking for on council websites and that levels of satisfaction are actually getting worse.

This leads to visitors making more costly and avoidable contact with the council through other channels.

Socitm said that while website enquires cost 32p, a phone enquiry would cost £2.90. A face-to-face enquiry would be even more expensive costing around £7.40 to deal with. This is more than 23 times the amount it would cost to process an online enquiry.

According to Socitm, in May 2010 there were 32,000 failed website visits for county councils and a further 8,000 failed visits for shire districts. They estimate in one month this may have cost councils an extra £17m.

"Our data continues to show how much cheaper the web channel can be than going through an intermediary, such as the phone call or the visit to the one-stop shop" said Martin Greenwood, programme manager for Socitm Insight.

"However, channel shift online will only work if websites work right first time and every time. Information suggests under-investment in the web is the cause of its current low performance and this needs to change.

"Investment in the web will reap significant returns because of the potential to reduce the cost of meeting customer enquiries."

But councils have been criticised for spending money on improving websites. A series of Freedom of Information requests recently revealed that councils have spent a mean average of £100,000 improving their websites over the last ten years, with some local authorities spending considerably more.