Over a year ago I wrote that we needed a strategy for trust. I argued that the basis of local government reputation was shifting away from being sufficient to simply keep people informed if we wanted approval and support.
For the first five years of the local government reputation campaign we believed that residents who were more informed were always more satisfied. This was backed up by a body of evidence drawn from several rounds of BVPI and place surveys.
In hindsight we also know it reflected a period where government spending on services had outstripped inflation year on year for over a decade.
Since 2010 things have been different. Basildon Council will see the proportion of its overall budget that comes directly from central government funding reduce from approximately 50% in 2010 to around 25% by 2017.
And this is a common trend across all councils. All of us are going to have to get used to giving local people more unwelcome news involving cuts and changes to services.
Just telling the public what we are doing will no longer drive satisfaction.
Recent research is beginning to suggest that the old correlations between being informed and being satisfied are beginning to break down. We must become more sophisticated in how we communicate.
We need to explain better why we do things and we also need to improve how we manage expectations. Finally, and it might seem blindingly obvious – we need to be more bloody honest.
For over a year now Lgcommunications has been working with SOLACE and the LGA on a project that we hope help us to do just this. The Building Trust campaign is being built around the three pillars of brand, leadership and strategy which I used my last three columns to write about.
A Building Trust consultation document was launched at our academy in May. At the LGA conference in July we reviewed progress with a group of over 50 chief executives. We aim to launch the action plan at the SOLACE Summit in October.
This is not only an issue for councils.
I am delighted that local and central government communicators are now working more closely together than ever before including planning a first joint Government Communication Network/LGcommunications conference to be held next summer.
All of us in the public sector have a massive challenge to win greater trust from the public. We will do that by the way we behave, and I believe more effective and honest strategic communication will play a significant role in helping to achieve that trust.
Cormac Smith is head of communications at Basildon Council and LG Comms chair
