Devolution. You heard about it but do you know what it really means for you and your area? If you’re a local government communicator it’s going to become a pretty big deal.
by Darren Caveney
Read moreuseful lga purdah guidance for elections
With local elections set to take place - followed by the EU referendum in June - communications teams in councils around the country are once again working out what they can and can't do under the purdah guidelines.
by David Holdstock
Read morefree images for local government
A powerful image can make a point and make you stop and look. In years gone by, image libraries were maintained by most councils. As the cuts bit they often went. Now the Local Government Association has a solution for the sector.
Read morewhy you need to get involved with #ourday
The #OurDay initiative aims to paint a picture of what local government does. And with key decisions on spending coming up there's never been a better reason to get involved. And there are tools to help you, too.
On Wednesday, councils across the country will be taking part in #OurDay, the fourth annual tweetathon to highlight the huge range of work that goes on all day, every day in local government. Last year, over 8,000 accounts tweeted 16,500 posts to more than three million people in 24 hours – and with #OurDay 2015 taking place just one week before the Chancellor’s Spending Review, we want this year’s event to be even bigger. We need to make sure that people know just how much local government does, making people’s lives better through everything from day-to-day tasks right up to life-changing interventions.
council magazines - do they have a future?
Council magazines. Thought they were a thing of the past? Think again - it turns out most councils still have one according to this latest research. But what of their future?
You can have your say via a planned Twitter Chat today.
When the Local Government Association launched its first Reputation campaign in 2005, publishing a regular magazine or newspaper was one of the 12 core actions each Council was advised would help to improve public satisfaction.
By 2009, LGCommunications found that 94% of councils in England produced a regular residents’ publication. In 2015, how has the landscape changed?
The rise of internet use and social media, reducing council budgets and high-profile changes to the Recommended Code of Practice For Local Authority Publicity all seem to have had an effect.
Of the 310 councils I currently have data for:
download and blog: unpacking purdah: what do pre-election publicity restrictions mean in practice?
In a set period before an election tight restrictions come into force on what comms teams in the public sector can and can't do. The Local Government Association have written a rather fab guide from a local government perspective. Follow the link in the blog to the download.
The countdown for local and national elections has started and communications teams in councils around the country are working out what this means for them. In response to requests for guidance, we recently produced a short guide to the publicity restrictions during the run-up to an election. Nearly 5,000 downloads later, even I’ve been surprised by the level of interest.
The term ‘purdah’ has come into popular use in both central and local government to describe the time immediately before elections and referendums when, amongst other things, particular care must be taken in the way communications teams operate.
it's time to fightback... I'm not scared
A discussion took place on Twitter shaped by predictions of worse to come for local government. But should we be downcast? Or fight back? Here the director of comms at the LGA urges for the fightback.
Local government is doing some remarkable things. If any major business continued to deliver services against a budget reduction of 40 per cent it would be rightly lauded as heroic.
Well, that’s exactly what local government has done.
At the same time, our reputation remains high and we are trusted by our residents to do the right thing. However, the scale of the financial challenges often means that we, in local government, are never able to pause for a moment to reflect on the scale of our achievements.
involving and evolving internal comms
Staff are our greatest asset. How many times have you heard that? But if they really, really are then good internal comms really matters. Here's some feedback
by Liz Copeland
I had the pleasure of attending a very interesting Melcrum member event last week, which aimed to explore how delegates could maximise the strategic impact of their internal communications with limited resource.
For me the main themes of the day centred on two words:
Involving – engaging staff with the business so they are motivated to go the extra mile and in turn become more productive.
get your marks, get set, local government goes social
As social media week looms, the Local Government Association - the LGA - have posed a few questions. They want local government to get more social. During the week and maybe in the future too. Care to join in...?
by Michelle Rea, Sian Morgan, Liz Copeland and Kristian Hibberd
Over the last few weeks the LGA’s Communications team has been putting its collective head together on how we could use Social Media Week to further stimulate the use of social media by councillors, council officers and official council accounts.
Our thinking was that if local government made enough noise about all the great stuff being achieved by embracing the channel, the collective voice would prove powerfully persuasive to opponents, sceptics and the uninitiated.
We are keen to demonstrate through practical examples from the sector that using social media in a coordinated and sensible way can help enhance the reputation of local government, improve engagement with different elements of the community and drive efficiency.
