By Rhiannon Hilton MCIPR, LGcomms Future Leader, Cheshire East Council
If there was one standout message from the most recent LGcomms Future Leaders session, it was that.
Gathering at Staffordshire County Council’s County Buildings, I joined the others in my cohort for a full day of talking all things Politics.
The day started with a presentation from Julie Odams, Head of Policy and Communications at the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
Julie shared her wisdom of how to navigate the lead up to an election and what we should expect to happen during this time – reminding us that the work (and pressure) for comms professionals begins many months before the event itself takes place.
While sharing her knowledge on how to proactively manage changes in administration, as well as the raft of new members that often comes with that, Julie stressed the importance of getting in there early and building relationships with the leadership.
Key actions include getting a meeting in their diary asap, understanding what their priorities are and taking time to get to know them on a personal level.
It was a reminder that sometimes, a conversation about something completely unrelated to work can be just as important in building solid professional relationships than the nitty gritty of a crisis you’re trying to avert.
We’re all human, after all.
And demonstrating the value of comms by delivering some ‘quick wins’ is also never a bad thing!
Next, we heard from Jimmy Smallwood, Head of Media at the Covid Enquiry, who gave a fascinating insight into working with politicians and the media on a national level.
He demonstrated that having trusted relationships with leaders means that when you go to them with an idea that on the surface could look risky – but your skills and experience tells you could be more than worth the time spent – they may just go with it.
He also prompted not to forget to evaluate the ‘storm’ we stopped from developing, or the negative headlines that never surfaced because we carefully and skilfully handled the situation.
I’d argue that quite often, it’s the headlines that don’t appear that carry more reputational weight – and we should be letting our leaders know about these instances just as much as we do about the positive coverage we secure.
We then moved on to a quick group task that saw us thinking about one of our organisation’s top three priorities, and how we could work effectively to land these priorities with the new Government.
From reading up on Party manifestos, publicly stating how Government policies apply or impact locally, and building relationships with your local MP to land key messages in Parliamentary sessions, there were some top tips for helping us to take steps along our own public affairs journey.
We then heard from Sarah James, Assistant Director for Communications Staffordshire County Council, who shared her insights of working with leaders and elected members.
Taking time to understand who Leaders are outside of the organisation, visibility, and proactively demonstrating the value that comms brings to your organisation to help build trust all echoed through her presentation.
Next up was Chris Ebberley, Head of Member and Democratic Services at Staffordshire County Council. It was fascinating to hear Chris’ insights into working with elected members and about the breadth of a council’s constitution (it sure isn’t light reading!).
To round off the day, Pat Flaherty, Chief Executive of Staffordshire County Council, shared his journey to becoming a chief exec and anecdotes of working with communications teams – stressing the value and trust he places in them.
And the key message from this part of the session? – ‘Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear’. Sounds obvious, but a reminder that it’s often down to the comms team to have the difficult conversation – and have it we should.