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Dear chief executive, Happy New Year and all that. I would like to be more optimistic about the year ahead but the CSR just before Christmas confirmed what we probably already knew: 2016 is the year that local government has to actually start transforming itself, or face extinction.Who was it that joked about ‘I am afraid to tell you, there's no money left'? Well, seriously, there's no money left. And the way people are living their lives is changing so rapidly that our old 20th century answers will no longer solve our 21st century questions. We cannot communicate our way out of these challenges, but effective communications is a vital element in how we deliver a better future for our citizens. Can I suggest seven things you can do right now… 1. Involve and explain, don't sell and promote Your council can't spin its way out of what has to happen over the next few months and years. Services will close, buildings will shut, staff will lose their jobs, residents will have to do more for themselves. You and the political leadership will need to be ruthlessly honest about all that and be clear about what you are going to do about it because local people are looking to you all for leadership. That means the council has to start talking to people, explaining how things will have to change and having meaningful conversations with residents rather than throwing press releases and leaflets at them. It will be hard, it will be painful, it won't garner pleasurable headlines in your local paper and it will mean advising the Leader to stop doing the kid of PR that has felt good in the past. 2. Trust is more important than good coverage Reputation still matters but not in the way it used to. It used to be about managing a positive profile in the media and increasing satisfaction scores through effective marketing or campaigning, but in a local government world where all certainty has gone and everything is changing, the old truths just don't work. There is a crisis of trust in public institutions and that is where we must focus our efforts. We can never expect people to be happy about the changes we are making but we can work to ensure they trust us to make these decisions in the best interests of the area. It is the prerogative of local people to give us that trust, or not. It is our job to earn it - and that starts with genuine human, open and trustworthy comms. 3. Your head of communications should be in the room when you are making policy Don't see communications as something that happens after the senior leadership team and the Cabinet have made the decisions. If we are to understand our citizens better, have a different kind of relationship with the people we serve and talk to them in ‘human', then communications has to be a strategic issue and your head of communications needs to be part of developing policy and making decisions. If he or she isn't in the room when the real decisions are being made then that says something about your leadership - or them. 4. You need to be where the action is Your local newspaper has done good work over the years to hold the council to account and create a sense of community, but many of the people you want to talk with no longer read it. The evidence is in the stats, which your comms team should be sharing with you, and in the feedback from your citizens and customers that you should be collecting at least quarterly (you are doing research aren't you?). That's not to say that the local newspaper does not have some influence still, but as part of multi-channel approach that takes in radio, TV, direct mail, email and social media, and more. 5. Digital is not new or special If you are still getting around to digital, then you have already failed some kind of test. Five years ago digital comms may have been something you delegated to an officer in their twenties to manage for you. Now it's mainstream and if you and your councillors are not in what we all now have to call the ‘digital space' then your council is invisible to mostly everyone. But be advised… 6. The key word in social media is ‘social' not media If you are being told to use Twitter and the like just to publish your press releases and the leader's annual new year message, then ignore the advice. Social media is where people engage with each other, argue and debate, share links and ideas, joke around and speak to each other as humans not as ‘audiences'. If your head of comms is writing your internal blog and drafting the leader's tweets then neither of you get it. If you think social media is just another promotional communications channel then think again. 7. Evidence, evidence, evidence Years of experience and professional or political gut feel do count for something. But good policy demands good insight into the needs and motivations of your citizens, and that means listening to people as much as it does researching their opinions. You need to assess and measure how your decisions will make and have made a difference. And your PR team needs to be telling you how the communications is working in terms of effective involvement by fully engaged residents. If it's not working then don't keep doing it; learn from others and change your approach. Good luck! Paul Paul Masterman is a PR and corporate affairs adviser with wide experience of working with and for the public services

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FINANCE

A chief executive's guide to communicating in 2016

By Paul Masterman | 26 January 2016

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