There is a growing conversation taking place among communications leaders in local government, and it is not really about communications at all.
It is about leadership, organisational culture and how councils understand the role of strategic expertise.
Recent discussions prompted by an anonymous article on comms2point0.co.uk have revealed a striking pattern. Experienced communications professionals from across local government (and beyond) have come forward describing remarkably similar experiences. Some are even quitting the profession.
Yet many of the stories sound almost identical. The common themes are familiar: responsibility without authority, strategic advice welcomed until it becomes uncomfortable, and senior communications leaders being held accountable for organisational outcomes they do not control.
If so many experienced professionals are describing the same experiences, perhaps the question has never been ‘what is wrong with our heads of communications?' but rather ‘what does local government need to learn about how it uses communications leadership?'
Political tensions, leadership instability, underinvestment and competing priorities can all be projected onto, or concentrated around, an individual role. When organisations become frustrated, it seems too easy to question the effectiveness of the communications (leader) than to address the structural conditions or culture in which they are operating.
Councils frequently say they want strategic communications. They recruit experienced professionals to help build trust, influence organisational culture, improve engagement with communities and support major transformation programmes. However, many communications leaders report that these ambitions are not always matched by organisational reality.
Communications can still be treated primarily as a delivery function rather than a strategic source of organisational intelligence. Advice is sought, but not always acted upon. Communications leaders are expected to influence outcomes without having the authority, resources or access required to do so effectively.
Long-term priorities can quickly be displaced by immediate pressures. Teams become increasingly reactive, while the deeper issues affecting trust, reputation and public confidence remain unresolved. Over time, this can create an impossible set of expectations.
Political tensions, leadership instability, underinvestment and competing priorities can all be projected onto, or concentrated around, an individual role. When organisations become frustrated, it seems too easy to question the effectiveness of the communications (leader) than to address the structural conditions or culture in which they are operating.
The comparison with football is an obvious one. Changing the manager is often easier than confronting deeper organisational problems. Pointing the finger is easier than a club taking a good hard look at itself.
And repeated changes do not necessarily solve those problems.
This is not an argument against accountability. Senior communications leaders should absolutely be accountable for the quality of their advice, the performance of their teams and the outcomes they can reasonably influence.But accountability only works when it is matched by clarity about authority, expectations and decision-making responsibilities.
Organisations cannot ask communications professionals to operate strategically while simultaneously excluding them from strategic conversations. Nor can they expect transformational outcomes without investing in the capacity required to achieve them.
The bigger question is why these experiences appear so consistent.
The local government sector talks frequently about resilience, but less often about the organisational conditions that make resilience necessary in the first place.
If experienced communications leaders repeatedly find themselves in environments where strategic expertise is undervalued, where challenge becomes unwelcome and where unrealistic expectations persist, that should surely prompt reflection at an organisational level.
The issue may not be communications at all. It may be a symptom of broader questions about leadership culture and behaviours.
What do councils genuinely want from strategic communications? Why do they recruit experienced leaders? How are they expected to contribute to decision-making? And what happens when their professional advice challenges existing assumptions?
These are not questions for communications teams alone. They are questions for chief executives, senior leadership teams and elected members.
Of course, not every difficult experience is evidence of organisational failure. Some people underperform. Some are the wrong fit for organisations. Some make poor decisions.
However, neither should every departure be interpreted as evidence of individual inadequacy.
When similar stories emerge repeatedly across multiple organisations and sectors, it becomes harder to dismiss them as isolated incidents. Patterns deserve attention.
The purpose of raising these issues is not to create a forum for grievances or to relitigate individual experiences. It is to understand whether local government is creating conditions that prevent comms leadership from delivering what organisations say they want from it. The response so far suggests this may be a much bigger conversation than many realise and one which is repeated beyond local government, or even the public sector.
If that is true, the opportunity is significant. Rather than asking why communications leaders are struggling, perhaps local government should ask a different question: what is the system trying to tell us?
Because if capable and experienced professionals are repeatedly encountering the same barriers, there may be lessons for organisations as well as individuals.
It is time the sector started learning them.
