Future Comms: Launching today – be part of the first ever cohort

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LGcomms is launching Future Comms, a new flagship training programme designed to equip today’s communications teams for tomorrow’s challenges.

Sign up now to join the first cohort, launching with an in-person only session on 29th January from 9.30am – 13:30pm, in Lambeth Town Hall.

Join us for a half-day in-person training session to kick off the first Future Comms Team programme. We’ve built the agenda around topics you told us were most important to you when surveyed; storytelling, misinformation/audience insight and behaviour change.

• Dubstep dustbins: storytelling for the modern age, with James Morton (Turn the Page) and James Bird (Ealing Council)

  Best Young Communicator at the UnAwards 2025 James Bird has been grabbing headlines with his explosive social media content for Ealing Council. Racking up hundreds of thousands of views and earning traditional media coverage with a playful social media campaign aiming to encourage residents to report flytipping and increase confidence in the council’s responsiveness to issues that frustrate local residents.

  James Morton is a storytelling specialist and founder of Turn the Page, a training and creative agency that helps clients get results through campaigns with powerful storytelling at their heart.  In this session, we’ll learn some of the key principles of storytelling from these two creators, and develop your storytelling skills.

• Who cares? Understanding your audience and tackling misinformation in a fragmented media landscape, with Helena Hornby, Orlo Social, Richard Neale and Judy Holden, Surrey County Council

  Trust in public institutions, professionals and mainstream media is on the decline, and we’ve all seen the effect of misinformation and polarised opinion at every level of society, from national protests and rioting outside asylum hotels to smaller local issues in your areas, where even seemingly innocuous council activities can become major touchpoints for protest, misinformation and hostility.

  But how do we actually respond to all this in our work? How do we split the signal from the noise of social media, consultation responses and councillor inboxes, where a vocal minority can give the impression that everyone is ready to march on the town hall! In this session, we’ll look at some techniques to help you understand your audience, consider local demographics, public sentiment and research trends to help you respond in a practical way to what can seem to be a pretty overwhelming topic.

• Everything is changing: getting good work done in a changing world, with Dr Nupur Yogarajah, behavioural scientist, medical doctor, and NHS clinical leader

  In this session, we’ll take a more personal turn to close out the day, reflecting on how to get good work done in complex organisations when change is constant. Dr Nupur Yogarajah, Behavioural Scientist and medical doctor, will draw on an example of work that inspired her own practice, sharing how using a behavioural science lens helped her understand a complex problem and identify approaches most likely to make a difference. She’ll explore why people often resist change, and how communication can either support progress or unintentionally slow it down. The session will then consider how communications professionals can draw on their own motivations and inspirations in their work, apply simple behavioural science principles to increase impact, and think about how to sustain themselves when working in challenging environments.

We hope you’ll come away from the day inspired, connected to a powerful network of Future Comms Team peers and ready to continue to your development through the Future Comms programme, with personalised objectives that help you connect your learning back to the work you do, day in and day out.

You’ll also have the chance to shape the agenda for this exciting new initiative built by and for local government comms teams.

Or to indicate a preference or expression of interest for one of the upcoming other regional events, once the details have been confirmed:

· Spring 2026 – East Midlands

· Summer 2026 – North West

· Online only (at some point during 2026)

Please complete the online form for future sessions.

*The majority of places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, with only one place per organisation. Some places will be prioritised for teams who have recently participated in an LGA Healthcheck or Peer Review, to support teams as they implement peer recommendations.

Book your space on 29th January below.