Our on-site communications support offer

Work can be conducted virtually or in person.

The offers set out below will be carried out in accordance with COVID-19 restrictions in place at the time. Currently, support may be provided in person or using Teams or Zoom depending on the needs of the council.

To support your response to the pandemic, we have created a COVID-19 communications hub, with practical guides and best practice case studies.

One-day healthcheck

Communications healthcheck (free)

Each council is entitled to up to one free day of communications support during 2021/22, which can be tailored to your individual needs. This includes:

Overall review of your current communications function
Review of your communications strategy
Assessment of current communications activity, capability and capacity
Quick wins to help you tackle key issues and a summary report.

Three-day healthcheck

Communications review (costed)

For councils looking for a more in-depth and strategic view of their wider communications activity, we offer a three-day communications review. This includes:

in-depth review of your current communications function
in-depth review of your strategy and advice on developing an authentic corporate narrative and place brand
detailed assessment of current communications activity
feedback session - a set of quick wins to help you tackle key issues and a detailed report with longer term recommendations.

Led by an experienced senior communications manager, the review team will be assembled depending on the areas of specialism you would like reviewed.

Both our one-day health checks and three-day reviews can be tailored to cover your communications around specific issues or service areas.

Strategic support

Communications without strategy does not work. A communications strategy, an authentic corporate narrative, clear priorities and a compelling place brand are core components of effective, strategic communications. We offer two services to help councils, both of which can be tailored to your needs.

Workshops (costed)

Led by an experienced communications professional, we offer a roundtable session with senior management teams to help develop your corporate narrative and organisational priorities/campaigns.

We also offer a workshop with cabinets and executives, led by a member peer and a communications professional. These sessions cover the importance of good communications, the role of members in engaging with their communities and developing the administration’s priorities into a compelling narrative.

Strategy development (costed)

We offer support with the development and writing of a communications strategy and/or corporate plan. Working with your communications team, we will spend time onsite helping to shape the core elements of your strategy and advice on what good looks like.

#FutureComms skills audit (costed)

Using the themes of our #FutureComms resource, we offer an audit of your authority’s capacity and capability to deliver the core components. A written report will provide recommendations, including advice around training and development and recruitment.

Social media support

Training (costed)

We offer social media training for councillors and officers. Bespoke courses can be arranged to suit the size of the group as well as the experience and needs of the participants.

Depending on your needs, we can cover topics such as:

Understanding social media best practice (what, when and where)
Engaging with your audience
Content planning
Content creation
Evaluation
Dealing with challenging situations online
Finding an effective and appropriate ‘digital voice’

Media training (costed)

We can help commission media training for individuals (e.g. Leaders and chief executives) as well as for small groups, such as cabinets.