Local government has been thinking a lot about community engagement and reputation management, and one of the unexpected side-effects has been an increased focus on how council communications support the democracy and participation message.
Press releases are more focused on residents’ experiences, and repeat key messages about the council’s activities. Process description is kept to a minimum, and attention directed at what local residents can do or achieve alongside the Council.
That sounds like spin, and it’s true that the council and its political leadership benefits directly from good messaging and reputation management. On a more noble level, though, interesting and relevant press releases are essential information if we are to build support for local democracy and the local democratic process. The resident focus reminds people of the role they have in the decisions that are taken at local level.
These optimistic thoughts were prompted by watching a different public authority get the tone badly wrong. A popular art house cinema in Brighton wants to buy the possibly-for-sale fire station next door. The article was clearly a bit of a PR piece for the cinema, but the fire brigade’s reaction to the idea is a classic piece of prehistoric process description and legalese:
“We have still got to find land in Brighton and make sure we have got planning permission before we can look to sell. We are a public authority so when we do reach that stage we have to sell at the best price, we can’t take into account the popularity of different plans or anything like that.”
It’s a message almost perfectly calculated to disempower and discourage, and it gives the strong impression – particularly in the last few words – that the Fire Brigade couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss for what the general public think.
Of course, the fire brigade don’t really think that, and their message is legally and procedurally entirely accurate. That’s not really relevant: it is possible to combine accuracy and legal backside-covering with positive messages that encourage people to take part. Councils do it all the time.
Good work on engagement by councils will be rapidly undermined if local public sector bodies undercut the message on participation. There’s a case on issues such as this, where the whole public sector’s reputation is at stake, for council press offices to step in and help.
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
