That's a wrap...

I promised some reflections on my three years as Chair of LGcomms, having stood down earlier this week. First off, what sort of shape is our profession in right now - and is it fit for the future? Here's a sneak preview of an article I've written for the Local Government Chronicle which they'll hopefully publish shortly...

I was four years old the last time local government underwent the scale of reorganisation we are now facing. Most councils back then probably didn’t even have press officers, never mind communications teams. So as we contemplate the seismic shifts ahead, what’s different, and what sort of shape is our profession in to cope with the huge changes on the horizon?

I’m in a pretty privileged position on this one, having Chaired LGcomms, the largest membership organisation for public services comms professionals for the past few years.

So, what’s changed? First up, the ‘family’ of professions making up the modern council comms team has expanded. Two arenas in particular – public affairs, and engagement – are now far more central to teams. Given the political upheavals nationally and locally post-pandemic, the first element should come as no surprise. But engagement, as a discipline in its own right, has concurrently grown in importance. In places like Essex, with the design of new strategic authorities and councils on the horizon, I can see both being central – enabling influence in both directions, managing relationships, developing deeper levels of understanding and collaboration.

That’s not to say the traditional elements which makes up comms teams have lost their relevance. But they are operating differently. AI is speeding up workflow in communications, so although products and assets which may not be wildly different to what went before, they will certainly have been produced more quickly.

What is certainly different is the requirement to deal well with dis and mis information. Alongside AI this has roared up the agenda, especially following last summer’s violent disorder across the country. Both the Government Communications Service and the LGA offer good toolkits for effective strategies, and LGcomms has done its bit bringing best practice and lessons learned to wider attention.

Not so long ago, some were positing that AI would replace press officers. Now, we probably need press officers more than ever, to deal with AI or social media-led mis and dis-information, and maintain solid links professional journalists (who I would argue who are becoming more important than ever in helping us cut through the noise and present the facts.)

But it’s another of those more traditional comms disciplines – internal comms – which should be the focus of attention now, given the changes afoot. So often the Cinderellas, right now internal comms people are getting ready to star on the dancefloor at a string of balls, keeping change conversations rolling within councils and across systems, engaging employees, and dealing brilliantly with the uncertainties and unknowns. If there’s one comms area worth investing in right now for the road ahead, this is it.

What does this amount to? The notion of comms within councils as a family of related disciplines – media relations, internal, digital, marketing, engagement, public affairs – is firmly establishing itself. The indispensability of these skills is obvious. That’s illustrated by a small but growing cohort of former heads of comms who are stepping up to director, exec director and now Chief Exec level. As a professional family, we are big on values. It strikes me that now, with so much change on the horizon, we’ve got to a point where we’re being properly valued.