RoguePoet01, I beg to differ on "Most government sites are on the simple and lean side anyway."
I work for a city orginization as a web designer and our site is not "simple and lean sided", but in your defense a lot of government sites are simple, not because the designers can't make it look sleek and visually attractive but because most govenrment agencies feel the content is more important then the look and feel of it, and in doing so neglect the fact that a sleek site is user friendly.
The site of my agency is visually attractive as much as we can make it without having high-level administrator's coming down on us thinking we're concentrating more in visual look then content look. Unlike private companies who thrive on both visual and content, government agencies only thrive content, which is a shame to some extent.
But back to the post topic, harrymossman's your site is nicly done, but a thought, wouldn't the site search be more effective if you had the search box on the page itself and not as a link to another page?? Also I would try to use something as a background image for the site, while white is an acceptable color for a government site, an image makes it look more "alive". Our site uses a faded department logo.
I have this little thing, Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia with Involuntary Narcissistic Rage. It's no big deal really...