Things that a local authority comms leader should be fretting about

So I spent some of today chewing the fat with an old local government colleague. (That's just an expression, they are not old). We were, for reasons that need not detain us here, musing on what a good local government comms leader should be fretting about now. I thought that you might find an edited version of these musings diverting.

Partnerships

An increasingly complex area is the role of corporate comms within partnerships. It should be comparatively easy when things are proceeding well. At the very least we'd expect local authorities to be working on joint campaigns and to understand the risks and opportunities of joint approaches to communications.

But who provides comms leadership within the partnership? Is it the local authority? and if so why? In many areas the police force will have substantial comms resources as well as the various bits of the health service. The partnership might want to develop its own comms resources.

I don't know of any areas where LSPs are fully sharing comms resources but that seems a logical direction for some areas.

However LSP comms is managed, it's going to be much harder when things go pear shaped. Haringey provided a case in point. I can see similar issues with CAA on an annual basis.

For most local authorities, internal comms stops at the local authority boundary. But that seems old fashioned now. Police staff, housing landlord staff, health service workers and a whole host of other workers all have a real interest in many of the internal messages within the local authority (though not all of them). The same is true vice versa.

Social Media (-sigh-)

I know, I know I keep going on about it. But I can't apologise. It really is that important.

My view is that 2010 will be the year of social media. Senior managers have the sense that "we should be doing something with social media" so stuff will happen. What should really be exercising comms leaders is the question of where all this is going. Social media tends to open up organisations. It's fantastic at developing relationships, it it is quite levelling so organisations have much less control over the message and have to take part as much more equal partners in conversations.

In 10 years time an excellent authority will relate to its publics in a much more complex and dynamic way. Getting from here to there is going to require some changes. I bet your Council blocks staff access to social media sites, just for example.

Some people don't have access to social media. Many people have imbalanced access (they use it at home but not on their mobile say). Some people choose not to use social media. Do we encourage them to get on-line, leave them behind, develop work-a-rounds so they can carry on being outside the digital economy?

Cuts

Local Govt funding is about to drop off a cliff, there will be cuts, closures, reduction in discretionary spend on a big scale. This single sentence is going to dominate the working lives of local authority comms staff for years to come. I have more to say but I have written about this previously.

The excellent comms leader

Someone once told me that a local authority is an organisation constantly in flux. It's also an organisation unusually reliant on relationships within its structures and in the delivery of its services. This should be grist to the comms director's mill. It should be...

Image is Here they are!! Part 1 by bensonkua used under a Creative Commons licence.