I'd agree with you on the slider not being a good use of space. But I'd argue that it does get some other things right which a lot of uk government sites fail on.
In particular the simple presentation of the primary services people access with the option to expand out for other less frequently used ones. This is a huge improvement on, for example http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/home.htm
I have to use that site quite regularly and pretty much the only way to get anything is googling site:www.lambeth.gov.uk with the service you're looking for.
Agree accessibility could be an issue although looking at the fairly prominent accessibility section at the top of the site, it does look like they've at least considered it. I don't know enough about accessibility to evaluate whether what they've done is sufficient.
Perhaps holding this up as how they "should" be designed is a step too far but to me it looks like a step in the right direction.
In particular the simple presentation of the primary services people access with the option to expand out for other less frequently used ones. This is a huge improvement on, for example http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/home.htm
I have to use that site quite regularly and pretty much the only way to get anything is googling site:www.lambeth.gov.uk with the service you're looking for.
Agree accessibility could be an issue although looking at the fairly prominent accessibility section at the top of the site, it does look like they've at least considered it. I don't know enough about accessibility to evaluate whether what they've done is sufficient.
Perhaps holding this up as how they "should" be designed is a step too far but to me it looks like a step in the right direction.