Sorry this is late being posted!

This is a copy of my weekly blog which I write for work and is published on the council's intranet.  The views I express in this log are my own, professional, views as the Head of Communications but do not necessarily reflect those of the authority itself.

Hello.

It has been an exciting but also a bit of a depressing week.

Let’s get the depressing bit out of the way first.

I was at a meeting in Malton on Friday (it’s a lovely place, you should visit) of communications people from local government across Yorkshire and the Humber region.  It was our regular catch-up to discuss each others problems, share ideas and work out what we can do as a collective group to help each other deliver value-for-money communications across our respective organisations.

Janet Waggot was there too.  She’s the chief executive of Ryedale District Council (it has only 300 members of staff!) but also takes the chief executive ‘lead’ on communications across the region.  She’s passionate about the subject, understands how important communications is and explained how she has it in her top ten list of priorities.

However, she had a warning.  2011 onwards, she said, was going to be very tough for communications teams in the public sector as the axe began to swing and budgets are slashed.  She predicted that ‘back office’ stuff like our work would be cut first – rather than some of the discretionary services that we don’t actually need to provide but we like to.

OK – I hear you say – this is hardly new news! 

Fair enough, it’s not.  We all know the next few years are going to be very tough and that cuts are a case of ‘not if, but when’.  The good news is that Janet did acknowledge our joint concerns that communications is vital if cuts or service changes are going to be properly explained to residents.

We urged her to take a message back to her fellow chief executives to say ‘we know you can cut us, but we also think you need us’.

No doubt you are having similar conversations in your teams about the years ahead and where further efficiencies could be made.

That brings me on to my next issue this week – DECATS.

(This is the ‘exciting’ bit).

DECATS is a project that the council is currently undertaking.  It’s all about working out what ‘processes’ the council performs and how many people are performing them.  For instance, we now know there are 400-odd people doing admin work across the authority, more than 350 are involved in customer services and over 80 have some kind of marketing, PR or communications role, even if it’s just a tiny part of their job.

The idea of course, is to work out where efficiencies could be achieved, or perhaps where a process could be standardised for everyone.

Last Thursday was the marketing, PR and communications workshop, where colleagues from across the council came together to talk about what we might be able to do to improve communications.

It was a great session and several common themes emerged, including an acknowledgement that perhaps we’re not as joined up as we could be and that maybe we should have a common plan that we all work to.

I’m really pleased that the outcome was positive.  We’ve got some great communications and marketing talent and skill in this council and it seems there’s agreement that we could and should work more closely together in an organised fashion.

Next month, the corporate leadership team is to discuss which of the DECATS themes to develop into business cases.  I’ve got my fingers crossed that marketing, PR and communications is one of them as I’m convinced we could have several quick wins and maybe even save some money along the way.

OK – onto some of your comments from last week’s log.

On the issue of ‘twittering’ from the council chamber and ‘tweeting’ our election results, John from the business transformation team says:  “For some people, short updates from a politician may be a lot more effective than low-quality newsletters and pamphlets.  I reckon many of our councillors could actually benefit from using Twitter to give an insight into what they do for us, and what they believe.  As to tweeting election results, it’s a great idea so long as it’s well trailed in advance so that people are following us waiting for our news.”

Meanwhile, Martin from the Leeds Initiative writes: “good discussion - definitely think we should [tweet the election results] … beating all Dimbleby's in the process.”

And my comments on whether we need the local media in future seem to have upset some of you.  Annie from the Safer Leeds team sent me this: “How could you say that about the local media...? As someone who worked their way through the Yorkshire Post, Calendar, current affairs and documentaries at YTV through 20 years in the days when we did have a truly active, exciting, vibrant, regional and national media based in Yorkshire, I am heartbroken at what is happening to it today. OK, what we have left isn't brilliant, but it's better than nothing and there are some really good responsible journalists out there trying to do their best.  Great that everyone can see the council press releases but lots of viewpoints and voices mean lots of discussion which surely is what democracy is all about - and no Twitter doesn't do it for me!”

Fair enough!  That’s me told!

Finally this week, I wasn’t around to witness this personally when it happened, but it seems the communications team office was turned into a Chinese laundry last week.

The tale goes that one of my colleagues (who shall remain nameless) turned to his nearest colleague and asked whether she would object if he dried his PANTS on the radiator!

Apparently he was going home for the weekend to see his family and hadn’t had time to dry them before leaving home that morning.

I’ll spare you the detail about the size and colour of the two pairs that were placed on the radiator – but it did make me wonder.

As a member of staff we have to reimburse the council if we use the phone for personal calls – but is there a charge for using council heat to sort out your smalls?  Maybe there should be.

I’ll leave it there.  More next week.