Neil Gibbons reports on how local government communications teams are responding to the austerity drive

Cuts? What cuts?” demanded a comment piece in the Sunday Times last June. “Public sector cuts are on their way but local councils are still hiring for seemingly daft jobs.”

It was two days after Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, announced £1 billion of cuts for 2010 in local authority spending. “Yet,” the paper railed, “in Britain’s town halls, the ‘non-jobs’ and overpaid posts… are still on offer.”

The piece bemoaned recruitment ads for an “internal communications change consultant”, an “intelligence officer”, a “putting people first programme manager”, two posts for “London empowerment partnership co-ordinators” and a “head of city volunteering”.

It’s amid this climate of incredulous finger-pointing that communicators in local government are preparing for the future. The cuts are very real. Local government funding from central government will be reduced by 28% over the next four years, marking a continuing downward trend.

Half the councils in England have cut jobs in recent months and seven in 10 expect further redundancies, according to a survey of 129 council leaders by the Local Government Association.

Yet at a recent conference held by LGcomms only 10% of heads of communication had developed a strategy for responding to the recession.

Liza Greaves is a director of Public PR which provides comms support for the public sector. She serves on the committee of CIPR Local Public Services Group, as well as running the national benchmarking group for public sector heads of communication.

“Communication team budgets were cut savagely last year,” she says. “Data collected in the summer from 83 local authority members of the national benchmarking group showed that 75% of budgets had gone down – and this was before the government published its spending review.

“Now the picture is even bleaker, with heads of comms being restructured out of organisations, particularly in the smaller authorities. This is at a time when employees need excellent internal comms to motivate them through the cuts agenda and residents need to understand and engage with what is happening.”

Those at the coalface are equally concerned about the coming years.

One senior communications officer for a London local authority (who asked not to be named) glumly points to the correlation between effective communications and positive outcomes.

“The impact of slashed budgets will be seen over the next year or so,” she says. “There is a direct link between residents’ satisfaction with their council and how well informed they feel.

“The challenge for communication teams will be to reduce or change their output, while keeping residents informed and therefore satisfied. There will be fundamental changes in how all services are delivered, including major front line services. This will provide another challenge to keeping residents satisfied.”

But not everyone sees the cuts in apocalyptic, or even pessimistic, terms. Gavin Calthrop, head of communications for Swindon Borough Council, believes that efficiencies are there to be found.

“We are constantly looking at ways of improving the communications offer and demonstrating where we can enable the organisation to improve services and efficiencies,” he says. “If you can’t do that then inevitably people will start asking questions about cutting your budget. The financial pressures are forcing us to ask some tough questions about how we do things and I actually don’t think that is a bad thing.”

Having said that, there remains concern about the ability to deliver effective communication with such reduced funds.

Northamptonshire County Council’s communications and marketing team have had to find 30% savings which, says its head of communication and marketing Faye Scadden, “will have a huge impact on the outcomes that the team are able to deliver.”

Northamptonshire’s austerity measures include stopping the council’s quarterly residents publication, outsourcing all design and print services, and reducing the council consultation budget.

“The challenge will be how this particular measure fits with the government’s localism agenda,” says Scadden. “Posts in the communications team are being put at risk and a smaller marketing structure will have to be implemented. This will limit how many campaigns the team can support, which will then impact on income generation and preventative work. These are difficult times and focusing on partnerships and cheaper channels such as social media will be key.”

The wisdom of shifting to digital channels is one of the most hotly contested debates in local government communications. Gavin Calthrop is certainly driving Swindon online.

“I am very clear about the approach we will be taking,” he says, citing what he calls a ‘Technology First’ approach to communications in which the organisation fundamentally shifts away from traditional platforms to online, social and digital channels.

But it’s not a question of merely creating digital outlets. Social media, he argues, will require a new multi-lateral approach to stakeholder communications: “Shift the emphasis away from ‘broadcast’ messages and one-off transactions with people, towards engaging people in meaningful interactions,” he says. “I see the local authority communications officers of tomorrow being conversation managers and social networkers.”

Some balk at the stampede towards digital media. While the logic for migrating online is obvious, some are concerned that removing council-printed publications, for example, risks excluding certain sections of the community.

As the London-based comms professional warns, “This will have direct impact on reaching some audiences. The opportunity to deliver statutory messages, engage or consult residents and advertise local services will be reduced. There is a fear that some hard to reach residents could be left out.”

The scale of the austerity challenge has seen councils coming together like never before, to share knowledge and resources.

“Local authorities and neighbouring teams either formally or informally merging their efforts is one of the strongest emerging trends,” says Greaves, but with a word of warning: “This throws up standard PR issues such as branding. At the same time, teams are tackling varied political agendas and often conflicting strategic objectives.”

Ashley Wilcox is Camden Council’s corporate communications manager and the chair of the CIPR Local Public Services Group. He says councils should think twice about contracting out their capabilities to generate revenue. “We are a strong sector because we share ideas and encourage others to up their game,” he says. “Sharing ideas through the CIPR seems logical to me rather than charging our neighbouring authorities for advice just so we meet a budget target. Sharing helps us all be creative and innovative.”

However brutal the cuts and however radical the changes they require, communicators agree that proving value for money is more crucial than ever.

“Evaluation is key,” says the anonymous source at a London authority. “All council comms teams need to illustrate they are reaching their audience and achieving the campaign objectives.”

Camden Council will take £80-100 million pounds out of its budget over the next three years. Its head of comms Paul Inglefield has just completed a restructure of the function which is now following an agency approach of account management.

With 1,000 posts being lost throughout the council (largely through natural wastage rather than redundancies), Inglefield has striven to sell the importance of communications.

“It’s very often seen as spin and gloss from the outside,” he says. “I have to say, Camden’s always seen the importance of strategic comms – and supported it. They’ve realised that within a period of change, communication is key.”

Inglefield conducted detailed research and produced a report for the management team. It looked at what the function should be doing and benchmarked it against similar organisations.

“It proved we couldn’t just decimate comms. We’ve still got to market the council – and keep people recycling, for example. There was an acceptance at management level that we need a good comms service.”

At Swindon, Gavin Calthrop agrees that evidence is key. “Don’t be passive - demonstrate how you see communications adding value. Be prepared to change and adapt your offer because the environment we work in is changing every day.”