DTW at LG Comms Leeds

Posted on: 30th May 2010 in Local government

The verdict – well the general consensus, whatever your political creed or colour, was that cuts announced so far are just the tip of the iceberg, and there is more pain to come over the next two years.

Our view is that there are three areas of communications without which local councils simply can’t function – media relations and reputation management, maintaining effective internal communications with staff and running a good website and digital presence.

Beyond that, everything seems up for grabs. Local authorities (and agencies working in the public sector!) need to become smarter in the way they look at communications spend, which can only speed up the drives towards digital and also to one place – closer working partnerships with other parts of the public sector.

We saw some snippets of how this is moving forward. For example, the free syndication opportunities being offered by government supersite NHS Choices are worth checking out. This dynamically driven content has the power to really add value to council websites.

Best workshop – for me the irrepressible David Pullinger (COI) guide to digital communications was hard to beat, and the idea of creating social brands around meaningful content rather than clever logos is one we should all learn from.

For those who weren’t in Leeds last week the main presentations are available online.