Our communications support offer provided a range of support to councils in 2022/23 – to develop and deliver more effective communications to communities.
Overview
Since 2019, 129 local authorities have received at least one form of our direct communications support. We provided further ad hoc support to local authorities by providing media relations advice, reviewing documents and speaking at events.
During 2022/23, our communications support team provided the following services to local authorities:
- communications peer reviews (three-day)
- communications health checks (one-day)
- advice and counsel to member local authorities – bespoke support, often around issues of reputational risk
- crisis communications cohort
- combined authorities communications network
- regular best practice events, seminars and webinars
- training for councillors (for example, strategic communications, social media and media relations)
- online notable practice resources
- research and surveys
- corporate and place narrative support
- training on communicating in a political environment training.
The objectives of the team providing these services are set within the LGA’s overall purpose: to promote, improve and support local government.
Highlights
During 2022/23, programme highlights and achievements included:
- 94 per cent of council leaders and chief executives who had received communications support said that the support had a positive impact on their local authority
- more than 20 councils received communications support to develop place narrative with 100 per cent of respondents saying the support had a positive impact on their council
- feedback across our communications programmes was extremely positive, as illustrated by the comments below:
The support we had from the team in terms of running our focus groups was fantastic – they ran really good sessions. And the report generated from the focus groups has really helped us focus on what the next steps on our place narrative look like.
We found the team to be really supportive, knowledgeable and engaged. The research they carried out on our behalf was incredibly useful and just being there as brains to ‘pick’ at the end of the phone / email was really helpful.”
